Auto insurance minimums in Hawaii
Hawaii requires drivers to carry auto liability insurance, and the minimum limits are 40/80/20. Written out, that is $40,000 of bodily injury liability per person, $80,000 of bodily injury liability per accident, and $20,000 of property damage liability per accident. The three numbers are always in that order, and they are the legal floor, not a coverage recommendation: a serious crash can produce losses far above the minimum, and the minimum is the most the insurer will pay, not the most the crash will cost. Most experts suggest carrying more than the minimum, and the site's guide to collision and liability explains what the three numbers mean and why the minimum is often not enough.
Hawaii's minimums are higher than the most common pattern in the country: $40,000 per person and $80,000 per accident for bodily injury, rather than $25,000 and $50,000, and $20,000 for property damage rather than $25,000. They were not always this high: the limits doubled from 20/40/10 on 1 January 2026, under Senate Bill 2342, Act 138 of the 2024 session laws, which amended HRS § 431:10C-301. Older tables still show the old figures, and any page quoting them as current is out of date. The higher figures are still a floor.
The minimums are for private passenger vehicles, and they are not the only cover the state requires. Hawaii also requires personal injury protection of $10,000 per person, and uninsured motorist cover is included in every policy unless rejected in writing, at limits of at least $40,000 per person and $80,000 per accident. Lenders and leasing companies require more again: a financed or leased car usually has to carry collision and comprehensive cover, and often higher liability limits, because the lender's interest in the car has to be protected. A driver who buys only the state minimum and skips collision cover has no cover for their own car at all, and the state minimum does not change that. The site's guide to full coverage versus liability works through the decision, including what a lender counts as full coverage.
Fault, PIP and uninsured motorist cover in Hawaii
Hawaii is one of the twelve no-fault states listed by the Insurance Information Institute. After a crash, your own PIP pays your medical bills and rehabilitation costs first, no matter who caused the crash, up to $10,000 per person. Your right to sue the at-fault driver for non-economic damages is limited by a mixed threshold, under HRS § 431:10C-306: you may sue if the PIP benefits incurred reach $5,000, or in cases of death, significant permanent loss of use of a body part or function, or permanent serious disfigurement. Gender and credit score are also banned as auto rating factors (HRS § 431:10C-207).
Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is the protection against the other driver's lack of cover, and its position in Hawaii is: uninsured motorist cover is included in every policy unless rejected in writing (HRS § 431:10C-301(b)(3)–(4)), at limits of at least $40,000 per person and $80,000 per accident since 1 January 2026, and the insurer must offer stacking across vehicles and limits up to the bodily injury liability limits, with stacking prohibited unless the stacking option is selected. A driver who is hit by an uninsured driver claims on their own uninsured motorist cover, and a driver hit by a driver whose limits are too low claims on underinsured motorist cover. The practical point is the same in every state: the minimum liability limits say what the other driver must carry, and uninsured motorist cover says what happens when they do not carry it — and the two together decide whether a crash with an uninsured driver leaves you paying out of pocket. Hawaii uses the SR-22 system, typically for 3 years from the conviction date.
No-fault is the system most often confused with the minimums, and it is worth separating the two. The minimums say how much liability cover you must carry. No-fault says who pays for injuries after a crash. Hawaii is a no-fault state, so PIP is the first payer for injuries, and the mixed monetary and verbal threshold gates lawsuits for pain and suffering. Damage to cars is still handled by fault, as in every state. Read the page for your own state before relying on the general description, because the general description is a map and the state page is the road.
Home insurance in Hawaii
No state law in Hawaii requires a homeowner to carry homeowners insurance. The requirement, where it exists, comes from the lender: a mortgage lender almost always requires homeowners cover as a condition of the loan, and the lender sets the dwelling limit it will accept. A homeowner without a mortgage is not legally required to insure the house, but an uninsured house is an uninsured asset — a fire, a storm or a burst pipe can destroy the largest asset most people own, and there is no cover to rebuild it. The site's guide to whether homeowners insurance is required explains the lender position in full. Hawaii also has a FAIR plan of its own — the Hawaii Property Insurance Association, the insurer of last resort for high-risk homes including lava zones 1 and 2 — and hurricane cover is typically bought as a separate policy.
A standard homeowners policy in Hawaii has the same six parts as everywhere in the country: dwelling, other structures, personal property, loss of use, personal liability and medical payments, as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners describes them. The dwelling limit is set by the estimated rebuild cost, not the market value, and the site's homeowners cost calculator works that figure out from the living area and a rebuild cost per square foot. Flood and earthquake are excluded from a standard policy and need separate cover — flood through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood insurer, earthquake through a separate earthquake policy. Your flood zone is an address-level fact, not a state-level one, so check the zone for the address, not for the state.
The deductible deserves the same attention in Hawaii as anywhere else. The minimum deductible offered by most insurers is $500 or $1,000, according to the Insurance Information Institute, and for wind, hail and hurricane damage the deductible is often a percentage of the home's insured value, typically 1% to 5% according to the III. On a home insured for $300,000, a 2% wind and hail deductible is $6,000. The site's tornado and hail guides explain the percentage deductible and the cosmetic-damage rule in full, and the declarations page should show both deductibles — the flat all-other-perils amount and the percentage wind and hail amount — before the policy is bought.
Health insurance in Hawaii
Health cover in Hawaii runs through the marketplace: Hawaii uses the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov (the former Hawaii Health Connector is closed). Enroll through HealthCare.gov for marketplace cover and premium tax credits. The site's enrollment and subsidies guide walks through the ACA route, and the subsidy calculator estimates what a premium tax credit would do to the monthly cost. Losing other cover is the common trigger for a special enrollment period, and a marketplace plan bought through it covers pre-existing conditions, covers essential health benefits, and can be bought with a tax credit — the three things a short-term plan does not offer.
Medicaid in Hawaii: Hawaii has expanded Medicaid since 1 January 2014, so adults can qualify on income up to 138% of the poverty level. The site's Medicaid eligibility guide and its checker explain the income rules, and they are the place to test eligibility rather than assuming it.
Short-term health insurance in Hawaii: Short-term health plans are not sold in Hawaii: state rules cap plans at 90 days and prohibit sale to anyone eligible for an ACA plan, and no carriers are selling them, and Hawaii is one of the 14 states plus DC where no short-term plans are available. A Hawaii resident who needs cover for a gap should use the marketplace, COBRA or Medicaid.
The regulator, complaints and how to check a quote
Insurance in Hawaii is regulated by the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Insurance Division. The regulator licenses insurers, approves the rating plans that set premiums and discounts, and handles complaints when an insurer's conduct is in question. If a claim is denied or underpaid, or if an insurer's behaviour seems wrong, the regulator is the place to complain — and the complaint should be made with the policy, the declarations page and the claim correspondence in hand, because the regulator decides on the record. The NAIC publishes complaint data comparing insurers by complaints relative to their size, and the state department publishes its own figures: read the ratio alongside the company's size and the state's average, not on its own.
Before buying any policy in Hawaii, run the checks in this order. First, the licence: is the insurer licensed in Hawaii, under the name on the policy. Second, the cover: do the limits match the need — the auto minimums above are the floor, not the recommendation, and the home dwelling limit should match the rebuild cost. Third, the settlement method and the exclusions: is the roof settled at replacement cost or actual cash value, is flood covered or excluded, is there a cosmetic-damage exclusion. Fourth, the deductible: what is the flat deductible, is there a percentage wind and hail deductible, and can you pay it from savings on the day of a loss. Fifth, the price: compare like with like, on identical limits, identical deductibles and identical cover types, and compare the total cost, not the premium alone.
Keep the documents together after buying: the policy, the declarations page, the insurer's claims number, and the regulator's contact details, in a place you can reach after a loss. A flooded house or a crashed car is a bad time to discover that the only copy of the policy was in the house or the car. The site's editorial policy explains how this site reviews its guides, and the contact page gives the address for questions about the site itself — but for a question about a policy, the insurer and the regulator are the authorities, not this site.
Worked example
Consider an ILLUSTRATIVE driver in Hawaii buying a first policy. She starts with the state minimums — 40/80/20 — and asks whether they are enough: a serious crash can produce medical bills above the per-person limit and property damage above the property-damage limit, so she compares quotes at higher limits as well as at the minimum, on identical deductibles, and checks what the extra cover costs. She reads the fault section above and notes that her own PIP pays first, and that she cannot sue for pain and suffering unless her PIP benefits reach $5,000. She checks the home policy for the same household against the rebuild cost, confirms the roof's settlement method, and reads both deductibles on the declarations page. She checks the health position — the marketplace route, the Medicaid position, and whether a short-term plan is even sold in Hawaii — before assuming that a short-term plan is an option. The example's value is the method, not any figure in it: no premium is stated, because premiums vary by insurer and by driver. What it shows is that the state rules are the starting point for every quote, and a quote judged against another state's rules is a quote misjudged.