Auto insurance minimums in Maine
Maine requires drivers to carry auto liability insurance, and the minimum limits are 50/100/25. Written out, that is $50,000 of bodily injury liability per person, $100,000 of bodily injury liability per accident, and $25,000 of property damage liability per accident, under Title 29-A section 1605. 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.
Maine's minimums are among the highest in the country for bodily injury: $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident, against the most common pattern of $25,000 and $50,000, with property damage at the common $25,000. Maine shares the highest per-person bodily injury minimum in the country with Alaska and Michigan. There is also a single-limit alternative: instead of the three split limits, a driver may carry a $125,000 combined single limit, which is one pool of cover for bodily injury and property damage together rather than three separate figures.
The minimums are for private passenger vehicles, and they are not the only cover the state requires. Maine requires no personal injury protection. Instead it mandates $2,000 per person of medical payments cover under 24-A M.R.S. section 2902(1-A), and $500 per accident for towing and storage where law enforcement requested the tow. Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident is required under 24-A M.R.S. section 2902, and cannot be waived below those figures. Maine does use SR-22 filings: after an OUI, an uninsured accident, reckless driving or a judgment, the insurer files one with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, typically for three years, though the duration depends on the offence. Proof of insurance is required to register a vehicle. 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.
Fault, PIP and uninsured motorist cover in Maine
Maine is an at-fault state. After a crash, the driver who caused it pays for the other driver's injuries through their liability cover, and fault has to be established before the injury claim is paid. Maine's fault rule is modified comparative negligence, under 14 M.R.S. section 156: a driver who is 51% or more at fault recovers nothing, and a driver 50% or less at fault recovers with the award reduced by their share of fault. There is no PIP requirement in Maine, so there is no first-party injury cover paying first while fault is decided. What Maine requires instead is medical payments cover of $2,000 per person, which pays medical expenses after a crash regardless of fault, but is a smaller and simpler benefit than PIP — it covers medical bills, not lost wages.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is the protection against the other driver's lack of cover, and its position in Maine is the strongest in this group of states: cover of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident is required, matching the bodily injury limits, and it cannot be waived below those figures. 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.
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. Maine is an at-fault state, so the driver who caused the crash pays for the other driver's injuries, and there is no PIP paying first while fault is decided, and no threshold gates lawsuits for pain and suffering. Medical payments cover of $2,000 is required instead of PIP, and it pays medical bills only. Damage to cars is still handled by fault, as in every state. The site's no-fault guide explains the twelve no-fault states, the choice states, and the thresholds that limit lawsuits for pain and suffering. 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 Maine
No state law in Maine 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.
A standard homeowners policy in Maine 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 — and the site's flood and earthquake guides explain the routes. 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 Maine 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. Maine also runs Fortify Maine Homes, a grant programme that helps pay for a stronger roof; it is a grant, not insurance cover.
Health insurance in Maine
Health cover in Maine runs through the marketplace: Maine runs its own marketplace, CoverME.gov, fully state-run since the autumn of 2021. Enroll through CoverME.gov for marketplace cover and premium tax credits.
Medicaid in Maine: Maine has expanded Medicaid — adopted by ballot initiative in November 2017 — since 1 October 2019, so adults can qualify on income up to 138% of the poverty level. Because Maine expanded Medicaid in 2019, the coverage gap that exists in non-expansion states does not apply here.
Short-term health insurance in Maine: Short-term health plans are not sold in Maine: state rules — including that plans must expire on 31 December of the year issued and a 24-month lifetime cap — make sale unattractive enough that no insurer offers them, and Maine is one of the 14 states plus DC where no short-term plans are available. It is an effective block rather than an outright statutory ban. A Mainer who needs cover for a gap should use the marketplace, COBRA or Medicaid. The site's short-term hub guide explains the federal duration rule, the August 2025 pause on enforcing it, and the alternatives that cover more.
The regulator, complaints and how to check a quote
Insurance in Maine is regulated by the Maine Bureau of Insurance, Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. 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, complain to the regulator with the policy, the declarations page and the claim correspondence in hand, because the regulator decides on the record.
Before buying any policy in Maine, run the checks in this order. First, the licence: is the insurer licensed in Maine, 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. 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 policy, the declarations page, the insurer's claims number, and the regulator's contact details together where you can reach them after a loss. 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 Maine buying a first policy. She starts with the state minimums — 50/100/25 — 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. She reads the fault section above and notes that there is no PIP paying first while fault is decided, that $2,000 of medical payments cover pays her medical bills regardless of fault, and that a driver 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. She checks the home policy against the rebuild cost and reads both deductibles on the declarations page. She checks the health position — the marketplace route through CoverME.gov, the Medicaid position, and whether a short-term plan is even sold in Maine — 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.