North Dakota Car Insurance Minimum Requirements

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

Shorthand: 25/50/25
Those three numbers cover only the liability half of a North Dakota policy. The state also requires uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage at 25/50 each and $30,000 of basic no-fault benefits per person. Four mandatory coverages, and none of the three extras can be signed away.
Bodily injury — per person: $25,000
Bodily injury — per accident: $50,000
Property damage: $25,000
Uninsured / underinsured motorist: Both required — 25/50 each
No policy may be issued or renewed on a vehicle registered and principally garaged in North Dakota unless it carries uninsured motorist coverage at the limits in § 39-16.1-11, which are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident. Underinsured motorist coverage must be written at limits equal to the uninsured limits. Neither is an optional add-on you can reject in writing, and the chapter contains no rejection provision. Higher limits must be made available on request, but the insurer need not exceed your own bodily injury limits or $100,000/$300,000, whichever is less. One narrow exception: § 26.1-40-16.1 lets a policy cut the uninsured and underinsured limits while a named excluded driver is at the wheel.
Personal injury protection (PIP): Required on every vehicle
North Dakota calls it basic no-fault benefits rather than PIP, and the owner of any vehicle registered here — or operated here with the owner's permission — must carry it continuously. Benefits are paid without regard to fault for medical and rehabilitation expenses, work loss, replacement services, survivors' losses and funeral expenses. Coverage can be suspended pro rata if the vehicle will sit off public roads for 30 consecutive days or more, and the owner keeps the plates during the suspension. An owner who has no security in force when a crash happens is personally and absolutely liable for the benefits the insurer would have paid.
PIP minimum limit: $30,000
$30,000 per injured person per accident, aggregate across every element of economic loss and every insurer on the risk. Inside that ceiling the statute caps work loss and survivors' income loss at $150 a week, replacement services at $15 a day, and funeral, cremation and burial expenses at $3,500; work loss itself is reckoned at 85% of lost income. Insurers must also make optional excess no-fault benefits available up to a combined $80,000 per person.

Property damage minimum — where North Dakota sits

North Dakota sets $25,000 — higher than 23 of the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $5,000 to $50,000.

How North Dakota 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 $25,000 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 2 states on this site set a higher one. Whatever the repair or replacement actually costs above $25,000 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 North Dakota drivers actually spend. The average premium written per insured vehicle here was $320 in 2023, 48th 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 North Dakota 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 North Dakota?

Both required — 25/50 each.

Is PIP required in North Dakota?

Required on every vehicle.

Is full coverage required in North Dakota?

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

Every statute cited for North Dakota

Why the rule looks like this

More on North Dakota

Checked against the primary sources above on September 30, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.