What Does 100/300 Mean on Car Insurance?

100/300 is shorthand for the liability limits on a car insurance policy: the insurer will pay up to $100,000 for injuries to any one person you hurt in an accident, and up to $300,000 total for everyone injured in that accident. When you see a third number — 100/300/100 — it is the property damage limit, the most the policy pays for other people's cars and property you damage. The notation is standard across the industry; the Texas Department of Insurance uses it for the state's own minimum, which it describes as 30/60/25 coverage.

How to read the three numbers

• First number — bodily injury liability per person, in thousands of dollars. On a 100/300 policy, each injured person can collect up to $100,000
• Second number — bodily injury liability per accident. No matter how many people are hurt, the policy pays at most $300,000 total for injuries
• Third number, when shown — property damage liability per accident, covering the other driver's car, fences, buildings, and anything else you damage

These are per-accident ceilings, not pools that refill. If three people are seriously injured and their claims total more than $300,000, the policy stops at $300,000 — and the rest can be pursued from you personally. That is the single most important thing the notation hides: the numbers are the end of the insurer's obligation, not the end of yours.

Where the notation comes from: state minimums

Every state that requires liability coverage writes its floor in this format. Texas law requires at least $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 total per accident, and $25,000 for property damage — 30/60/25, in the Texas Department of Insurance's own words. New York's registration requirements work out to 25/50 for bodily injury plus $10,000 for property damage per crash. Washington's insurance regulator notes the legislature made liability coverage mandatory for all motor vehicles precisely because uninsured drivers shift their risk to everyone else. A 100/300 policy, by comparison, carries several times any state's required state minimum — which is exactly why insurers and agents talk about it as a meaningful upgrade rather than a luxury.

How the per-person and per-accident caps interact

The two bodily injury numbers work together, and the smaller one binds first. On a 100/300 policy, one catastrophically injured person can collect at most $100,000 from your insurer — the per-person cap — even though the per-accident limit is three times higher. The $300,000 only comes fully into play when several people are injured: each person is capped at $100,000, and the accident as a whole is capped at $300,000. That is why two policies with the same per-accident number can behave very differently. A single serious injury, which is the common catastrophic case, is governed almost entirely by the first number, so when you compare quotes, pay at least as much attention to the per-person figure as to the headline per-accident one.

What 100/300 does not cover

Liability limits pay other people. They do not fix your own car — that takes collision and comprehensive, the pair usually sold together as full coverage. They do not pay your own medical bills; that is the job of medical payments coverage or personal injury protection, depending on your state. And they do nothing if an uninsured driver hits you. For that, the NAIC points to uninsured motorist coverage, which pays if you are injured by a hit-and-run driver or a driver who has no insurance. A 100/300 policy with nothing else is still a liability-only policy.

Is 100/300 worth the premium?

The honest answer is that it depends on what you have to lose. Liability limits exist to stand between an accident victim's claim and your savings, home equity, and future wages. Drivers with little income and few assets sometimes reasonably carry less; drivers with either are usually buying 100/300 for asset protection, not for the other driver's benefit. Matching your liability limits to your net worth is the cleaner way to frame the decision than any single magic number. And if premiums are the constraint rather than the limits, compare quotes at the same limits before trading coverage for price — and if money is genuinely tight, check whether you qualify for low-income car insurance programs before dropping to a bare minimum policy.

Bottom line: 100/300 means $100,000 per injured person and $300,000 per accident in bodily injury liability — ceilings on what your insurer pays others on your behalf. The numbers say nothing about your own car, your own injuries, or uninsured drivers. Read them as the size of the shield between an accident and your assets, and size the shield to what it is protecting.