A guide to car insurance rules written in January 2026 and left alone was wrong in at least eight states by October. Not subtly wrong: wrong about the minimum you must carry, about whether a mostly-at-fault driver can sue, about whether your state inspects cars at all.
Every figure below comes from the statute or session law cited on that state’s page. The full record is at what changed.
The changes with the most weight
Hawaii doubled every liability minimum. On 1 January 2026, Hawaii went from 20/40/10 to 40/80/20 — bodily injury from $20,000 per person and $40,000 per accident to $40,000 and $80,000, and property damage from $10,000 to $20,000. Act 138 of 2024 carried the increase but held this part back eighteen months so the insurance commissioner could collect rate filings first. The legislature’s own finding was that the minimums “remained unamended for nearly twenty-five years”. The $10,000 personal injury protection minimum did not move.
New Jersey took its second step. New Jersey now requires 35/70/25 on Standard policies issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2026, up from $25,000 and $50,000 of bodily injury liability. Uninsured and underinsured motorist minimums rose by the same amounts; property damage stayed at $25,000. This is the delayed half of P.L.2022, c.87, which set a 2023 figure and a 2026 figure in the same sentence.
Kentucky raised a 1974 number. Kentucky’s no-fault benefits had capped work loss and replacement services at $200 a week since 1974. From 15 July 2026 the cap is $500 a week, and the allowance for funeral, cremation and burial charges went from $1,000 to $5,000. The same act capped each medical charge at the workers’ compensation fee schedule and barred providers from balance billing the insured. What did not change is the figure most guides quote: the ceiling on basic reparation benefits is still $10,000 per person per accident. And the act reaches only policies issued or renewed from 15 July 2026, so one written earlier keeps the $200 limit until it renews.
Two states stopped letting a mostly-at-fault driver recover. Louisiana was one of the few pure comparative fault states, where a claimant 90% at fault could still collect 10%. Act 15 of 2025 rewrote La. Civ. Code art. 2323, and from 1 January 2026 a claimant 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. New York did the same on 26 May 2026, but only for car crashes: Part EE of the FY2027 budget bill added CPLR 1411(b), so a claimant in a case subject to Insurance Law article 51 whose culpable conduct is greater than the defendant’s recovers nothing. Pure comparative fault survives there for everything else.
That bill did three more things. It deleted the 90-of-180-days category from the serious-injury definition in Insurance Law § 5102(d), told the trier of fact to decide fault before deciding whether an injury is serious, and capped pain and suffering at $100,000 where the injured person was operating an uninsured vehicle, was driving impaired and convicted, or was driving in the commission of a felony and convicted. South Carolina rewrote its own apportionment rule for causes of action arising after 1 January 2026: fault can now be assigned to a properly disclosed tortfeasor who is not a defendant, and the carve-out that stripped joint and several protection from conduct involving alcohol is gone.
Utah made not having the card on you a misdemeanor. Failing to carry and display evidence of insurance was graded separately in Utah — an infraction on a first offense, a class C misdemeanor only on a repeat. On 6 May 2026 H.B. 24 folded it into § 41-12a-302, the no-insurance statute, so every violation is now a class C misdemeanor with the same $400 fine floor, $300 of which can be waived if you get coverage before sentencing.
New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, messily. The 2025 budget act repealed New Hampshire’s periodic safety inspection as of 31 January 2026. On 27 January a federal court ordered the state to keep the program running. The Executive Council then declined to extend the inspection vendor’s contract, which left no approved vendor, and on 13 February 2026 the Department of Safety suspended the program until further notice — stations may not issue stickers and no vehicle is required to be inspected. The state has appealed, so this can move again. Emissions testing was separately repealed effective 30 September 2026.
Which way things moved
Crash reporting thresholds went up, hard. Nebraska went from $1,500 to $2,000 on 18 July 2026 — and LB1126 moved that number in four statutes at once, including § 60-507, the suspension the DMV must impose on a driver who shows no proof of insurance after a crash — one figure answering two questions. Florida went from $500 to $2,000 on 1 October 2026. Oklahoma goes from $300 to $3,000 on 1 November 2026 and adds an exemption that did not exist: no report where everyone agrees to exchange information and there is no injury, no death and no damage to anything but the vehicles. The crash reporting table has them side by side.
Reinstatement fees went up quietly. South Carolina’s fee for driving uninsured is not a fixed number — § 56-10-520(D) sets a $600 base and lets the Department of Insurance re-set it each year against average private passenger auto rates. Order No. 2025-006 put it at $700 for calendar 2026; a driver who was not the owner pays $100. South Dakota went from $50 to $75 on 1 July 2026. Hawaii created a penalty aimed at cars shipped in from the mainland: from 3 June 2026, failing to register an out-of-state vehicle costs $500 to $1,000 per violation. And from 9 June 2026 Louisiana applies its impoundment procedure to vehicles registered in other states, not just its own.
Some penalties were cut. Oregon repealed the automatic one-year suspension for being in a crash while uninsured. From 1 January 2026 a suspension follows only if the driver makes no financial responsibility filing within 30 days, and it ends when the filing is made. The same act cut Oregon’s SR-22 term after a driving-uninsured conviction from three years to one. Alaska went further: an unsatisfied crash judgment used to mean filing proof for as long as you held a license, and from 22 September 2026 it is one year for a first suspension, three for a second, 10 for a third, and lifetime only on a fourth — a ladder that reaches back to suspensions imposed before it passed. South Dakota widened what a restricted license permits after a no-insurance suspension beyond work only, to child care pickup, health appointments, school, court, probation, sobriety testing, counseling and treatment. North Carolina gives owners 30 days instead of 10 to answer a lapse notice from 1 October 2026.
Louisiana’s lapse law moved both ways in one bill. The ban on surcharging a lapse used to be absolute, and insurers could not weigh a lapse in setting rates at all. From 1 January 2026 the protection reaches only a first lapse of 90 days or less and the rate-setting clause is gone — but five years of continuous coverage makes your next lapse count as a first one again. Colorado added an obligation instead: a policy issued or renewed from 1 January 2026 must pay to replace a child restraint that was in the car during a crash. Washington, D.C. replaced its list of license-costing offenses on 4 March 2026 and wrote down, for the first time, what reinstatement takes: a six-month suspension, proof of insurance, a $100 fee. Elsewhere inspections were adjusted rather than abolished — a loud exhaust fails a motorcycle’s annual Vermont inspection from 1 July 2026, and farm trucks over 10 years old left Missouri’s emissions program on 28 August 2026.
Two 2026 entries are non-changes, recorded for that reason. Florida’s attempt to repeal no-fault died in committee on 13 March 2026 — the third failure after a 2021 bill was vetoed and a 2025 bill died. PIP is still compulsory. And Wyoming’s 2026 budget session passed 107 acts, none of which touched any rule on that page.
Signed, not yet in force
These are law. The dates are set and nothing more has to pass.
- 1 January 2027 — Louisiana ends the safety inspection sticker for ordinary vehicles. Only commercial vehicles, covered farm vehicles rated over 26,000 pounds and student transportation vehicles stay inspected, plus the five emissions parishes, pending EPA approval. A $6-a-year identification sticker replaces the brake tag. The same date adds the interlock condition to the District of Columbia’s reinstatement rules.
- 1 March 2027 — Iowa’s crash reporting threshold goes from $1,500 to $5,000, above every threshold now in force anywhere, and an uninsured driver must report every crash whatever the damage.
- 1 April 2027 — Rhode Island insurers must offer underinsured motorist property damage coverage. Buying it stays optional and the 25/50/25 minimums do not change.
- 1 July 2027 — Nebraska stops accepting paper SR-22 filings; only electronic transmission by the carrier counts. The same day, Tennessee’s registration fees for an uninsured vehicle go from $25 and $100 to $500 and $1,000, with a $1,500 fee and registration suspension for a repeat lapse within three years.
- 1 October 2027 — Washington, D.C. doubles its minimums from 25/50/10 to 50/100/20, the first increase since 1982, and makes enhanced underinsured motorist coverage automatic unless the named insured waives it in writing. The law has been on the books since August 2026, while a 2026 policy still carries 25/50/10. From 1 January 2037 the limits step up again every ten years.
- 1 January 2028 — an Indiana officer may satisfy a proof request by checking the BMV’s verification system, rather than needing paper or a phone screen.
- 30 June 2029 — enhanced underinsured motorist coverage in Maryland goes back to being something you have to elect.
Why a page like this has to exist
A law takes effect on the day the legislature says so. A guide changes when somebody schedules a reason to look at it, and most never do — which is how a repealed Texas surcharge is still listed as a penalty seven years later. We keep a separate article on that.
The 2026 list tests that problem well, because so much of the year runs the unintuitive way. A reader who assumes rules only get stricter guesses wrong about Oregon, Alaska and New Hampshire. A reader who assumes nothing changes guesses wrong about Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana and New York. The only defense is to carry the date with the figure, and to record the change rather than edit the number silently. The comparison tables and the change feed are where to check.