Minimum Insurance
What is Minimum Insurance?
In 1980, Congress set a minimum insurance requirement of $750,000 per crash event for motor carriers operating in interstate commerce. This amount was intended to cover the costs to all parties adversely impacted by the truck crash.
What is the Minimum Insurance in 2025?
The minimum remains at $750,000 in 2025.
It has not been adjusted for inflation or to account for rising truck crash costs. This has led to financial hardship for truck crash survivors and families who have lost loved ones in truck crashes as well as millions of dollars of uncovered commercial motor vehicle crash costs being passed onto taxpayers.
Facts on Minimum Insurance
The amount of $750,000 would have the same purchasing power as $5,498,842.61 in 2023 dollars, if the amount were raised to account for medical-cost inflation.
Raising a policy from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 results in an approximate 20 percent increase in premiums.
Since 1980, truck weights and travel speeds have gone up, leading to even more devastating and expensive crashes.
Increasing the minimum insurance to account for medical cost inflation over the last four decades will prevent unsafe motor carriers and chameleon carriers from driving on our roads and discourage safe carriers from cutting cost to meet the price of unsafe competitors.