Full coverage vs liability, what you actually get.

"Full coverage" is not a legal category. It is shorthand for carrying liability plus comprehensive and collision, on top of whatever your state requires.

What liability-only actually covers

Every state sets a minimum liability requirement, shown as three numbers like 25/50/10: bodily injury per person, bodily injury per accident, and property damage, all in thousands of dollars. This is the floor. It pays for damage and injuries you cause to other people. It pays nothing toward repairing or replacing your own car.

What full coverage adds

Comprehensive coverage pays for damage to your car from anything other than a collision: theft, fire, hail, a tree branch, hitting a deer. Collision coverage pays to repair or replace your car after a crash, regardless of fault. Together, these two are what people mean by "full coverage." Neither is required by any state, but almost every lender or lease requires both until the loan is paid off.

When liability-only can make sense

If your car is paid off and worth relatively little, the math can flip. A common rule of thumb: once your annual full-coverage premium starts approaching 10 percent of what your car is actually worth, you're effectively insuring the car for more than it would ever pay out. That only holds if you could afford to absorb the loss of the car yourself.

The middle ground

You don't have to choose all or nothing on the comprehensive and collision side. Raising your deductible on either one lowers the premium while keeping the coverage in place for a genuinely large loss, which is often a better trade than dropping the coverage entirely.

See real full coverage and liability spreads on the rate map →