Auto insurance minimums in New Jersey
New Jersey requires drivers to carry auto liability insurance, and the minimum limits on a Standard Policy are 35/70/25 for policies issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2026. Written out, that is $35,000 of bodily injury liability per person, $70,000 of bodily injury liability per accident, and $25,000 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.
The 35/70/25 minimums are the second step of a phased increase under P.L.2022, c.87: the Standard Policy minimum was 25/50/25 for policies issued or renewed from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2025, and rose to 35/70/25 from 1 January 2026. The Basic Policy is a separate, cheaper option: $5,000 of property damage liability and $15,000 of personal injury protection, with no bodily injury liability.
The minimums are for private passenger vehicles, and they are not the only cover the state requires. A Standard Policy must include personal injury protection of at least $15,000 per person — $250,000 is the Standard Policy default. A Basic Policy has no bodily injury liability requirement and no uninsured or underinsured motorist cover. New Jersey does not use the SR-22 form: after a suspension, restoration is by the driver's own proof of insurance plus a $100 restoration fee. 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 New Jersey
New Jersey is a choice no-fault state. After a crash, your own PIP pays your medical bills first, no matter who caused the crash. The driver elects a Standard Policy or a Basic Policy and, on a Standard Policy, a limited right to sue or an unlimited right to sue. The limited right to sue applies the verbal threshold in New Jersey Statutes Annotated 39:6A-8.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is the protection against the other driver's lack of cover, and its position in New Jersey is: uninsured motorist cover of 35/70 is required on a Standard Policy and cannot be rejected, under New Jersey Statutes Annotated 17:28-1.1. Underinsured motorist cover must be offered up to the policy's liability limits, and there is no stacking on policies issued or renewed on or after 1 January 1991. The site's uninsured motorist guide explains how the cover works, and the California uninsured motorist page explains the offer-and-rejection pattern that several states use. 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. New Jersey is a choice no-fault state, so PIP is the first payer for injuries, and the right to sue for pain and suffering depends on the election on the policy: the limited right to sue applies the verbal threshold, and the unlimited right to sue does not. 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 New Jersey
No state law in New Jersey 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, and the site's homeowners guide explains how to judge a policy for the house rather than by a ranking.
A standard homeowners policy in New Jersey 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 New Jersey 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 New Jersey
Health cover in New Jersey runs through the marketplace: New Jersey runs its own marketplace, Get Covered NJ. Enroll through Get Covered NJ 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 New Jersey: New Jersey has expanded Medicaid — NJ FamilyCare — 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 New Jersey: Short-term health plans are not sold in New Jersey: state rules bar their sale, and New Jersey is one of the 14 states plus DC where no short-term plans are available. A New Jersey resident who needs cover for a gap should use the marketplace, COBRA or Medicaid. New Jersey also has its own individual mandate, in place since 1 January 2019. 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 — an ACA plan through a special enrollment period, COBRA continuation of an employer's plan, or Medicaid if income qualifies.
The regulator, complaints and how to check a quote
Insurance in New Jersey is regulated by the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance. 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 New Jersey, run the checks in this order. First, the licence: is the insurer licensed in New Jersey, 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 New Jersey buying a first policy. She starts with the Standard Policy minimums — 35/70/25 — 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 her own PIP pays first, and that the right to sue depends on the election on the policy. 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 through Get Covered NJ, the Medicaid position, and the fact that no short-term plan is sold in New Jersey — 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.