Montana Car Insurance Minimum Requirements

Montana requires at least 25/50/20 liability coverage. That is $25,000 for injuries to one person, $50,000 per accident and $20,000 for property damage.

Shorthand: 25/50/20
The three figures sit in § 61-6-103(1)(b), and the same numbers do double duty: § 33-23-201 pegs uninsured motorist coverage to the bodily injury limits in § 61-6-103, so raising one raises the other. Self-insurance under § 61-6-143 is not an alternative for an ordinary driver: it is open only to someone with more than twenty-five vehicles registered in their name. Section 61-6-103(12) forbids a reduced limits endorsement, so an insurer cannot sell a Montana policy down below these numbers by attachment.
Bodily injury — per person: $25,000
Unchanged since 1975. The Legislative Services Division's own background paper on these laws records the increases — $5,000 in 1951, $10,000 in 1967, $25,000 in 1975 — and then says flatly that "these amounts have not been increased since then." Fifty years later that is still true.
Bodily injury — per accident: $50,000
Property damage: $20,000
This is the one Montana figure that has moved recently, and it is where out-of-date guides go wrong. It was $10,000 from 1989 until House Bill 375 (Chapter 216, Laws 2015) doubled it to $20,000 for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2016. Sites still quoting "25/50/10" for Montana are describing a rule that ended a decade ago. The state's own driver manual is one of them: it still prints $10,000 for property damage, while the Motor Vehicle Division's website cites § 61-6-103 and gets it right.
Uninsured / underinsured motorist: Uninsured motorist must be included unless rejected; underinsured is not required at all
Two different things, and Montana mandates only one of them. Section 33-23-201 says a liability policy may not be delivered in Montana on a vehicle registered and principally garaged here unless uninsured motorist coverage is provided in the § 61-6-103 bodily injury limits; the named insured may reject it, and once rejected it need not be offered again on renewal by the same insurer unless the insured asks in writing. Underinsured motorist coverage has no such mandate — § 33-23-204(2) treats uninsured, underinsured and medical payments alike as coverages "included in or added to" a policy, and no section requires an insurer to offer or include underinsured coverage. The Commissioner of Securities and Insurance states the rejection rule for uninsured coverage and says nothing about underinsured. Section 33-23-203 also lets a policy bar stacking, so buying two cars does not double the uninsured limit unless the policy says so.
Personal injury protection (PIP): Not required
Montana is a pure tort state with no personal injury protection requirement and no no-fault benefits. Chapter 6 of Title 61 requires liability coverage and nothing else; medical payments coverage is an optional add-on named in § 33-23-204(2), not part of the state minimum.

Property damage minimum — where Montana sits

Montana sets $20,000 — higher than 17 of the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $5,000 to $50,000.

How Montana compares with every other state

What these numbers buy you

Those first two numbers are two different walls, and drivers regularly mistake them for one. $25,000 is the most the policy pays for any single person's injuries. $50,000 is the ceiling for everyone hurt in the same crash put together. Injure one person badly and $25,000 is all your insurer owes, however large the bill. Injure three people and they divide $50,000 between them. Anything a court awards above those lines is yours to pay, and it does not go away when the policy runs out.

The $20,000 of property damage cover is the figure drivers look at last and need first. It pays for what you hit — the other car, a guardrail, a storefront — and nothing else. Only 17 states on this site set a lower floor. Whatever the repair or replacement actually costs above $20,000 is not covered by this policy, and the difference is a debt in your name rather than your insurer's.

None of this is what Montana drivers actually spend. The average premium written per insured vehicle here was $346 in 2023, 44th highest of 51 states and DC — and that average covers policies far above the legal floor, not the bare minimum on this page.

Carrying the minimum is legal, not safe. It is the line below which Montana will not let you drive — and the penalties for falling under it are on the driving uninsured page.

Common questions

Is uninsured motorist coverage required in Montana?

Uninsured motorist must be included unless rejected; underinsured is not required at all.

Is PIP required in Montana?

Not required.

Is full coverage required in Montana?

No. Collision and comprehensive — the two coverages people usually mean by "full coverage" — are not part of what Montana law requires. A lender or leasing company will usually require them until the car is paid off.

Every statute cited for Montana

What changed

January 1, 2016
The property damage minimum doubled from $10,000 to $20,000
House Bill 375 of the 2015 session (Chapter 216, Laws 2015), introduced by Representative S. Lavin, amended Mont. Code Ann. § 61-6-103(1)(b)(iii) to strike $10,000 and insert $20,000, and its applicability section limits the change to "motor vehicle insurance liability policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2016." The $10,000 figure had stood since 1989. The two bodily injury figures were left untouched and still read $25,000 and $50,000, where the legislature set them in 1975. This is the single most common stale fact about Montana insurance: guides that still print "25/50/10" are describing the pre-2016 rule. The change also quietly lifted the uninsured motorist floor's companion figure, because § 33-23-201 ties uninsured motorist limits to § 61-6-103. The Legislative Services Division's topic primer records the bill and confirms the current $20,000 figure; the applicability date was read in the enrolled bill.
Montana Legislative Services Division — Topic Primer: Revise Auto Insurance Minimum Requirements (HB 375, 2015), with House Bill 375 (2015) enrolled bill

Why the rule looks like this

More on Montana

Checked against the primary sources above on September 29, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.