Auto insurance minimums in New York
New York requires drivers to carry auto liability insurance, and the minimum limits are 25/50/10. Written out, that is $25,000 of bodily injury liability per person, $50,000 of bodily injury liability per accident, and $10,000 of property damage liability per accident. The death limits are higher: $50,000 per person and $100,000 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.
New York's minimums are below the most common pattern in the country on property damage: $10,000, against the common $25,000. The bodily injury figures match the common pattern at $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, and the death limits are higher still, at $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident. The minimums are unchanged since 1995.
The minimums are for private passenger vehicles, and they are not the only cover the state requires. New York requires personal injury protection of $50,000 per person and uninsured motorist cover of 25/50. Supplementary uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is optional but is included at the policy's bodily injury limits on a new policy unless declined or reduced on a signed form, capped at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident. New York does not use SR-22 filings. 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 York
New York is a no-fault state, and has been since 1974. After a crash, your own PIP pays your medical bills first, no matter who caused the crash. Your right to sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering is limited by a verbal threshold: the injury must be a serious injury under Insurance Law §5102(d). The categories are death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member, and significant limitation of use of a body function or system. The 90/180-day category — an injury preventing substantially all usual daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash — was removed for actions commenced on or after 26 May 2026, under Part EE of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, leaving eight categories.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is the protection against the other driver's lack of cover, and its position in New York is: uninsured motorist cover of 25/50 is required, rising to 50/100 for death, under Insurance Law §3420(f)(1). Supplementary uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is optional but is included at the policy's bodily injury limits on a new policy unless declined or reduced on a signed form, capped at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident. 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 York is a no-fault state, so PIP is the first payer for injuries, and the verbal threshold in Insurance Law §5102(d) gates lawsuits for pain and suffering. 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 York
No state law in New York 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 York 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 York 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 York
Health cover in New York runs through the marketplace: New York runs its own marketplace, NY State of Health. Enroll through NY State of Health 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 York: New York 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 New York: Short-term health plans are not sold in New York: state law prohibits their sale, and New York is one of the 14 states plus DC where no short-term plans are available. A New Yorker 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 — 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 York is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. 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 York, run the checks in this order. First, the licence: is the insurer licensed in New York, 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 York buying a first policy. She starts with the state minimums — 25/50/10 — 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 she can only sue if her injury meets the serious-injury definition in Insurance Law §5102(d). 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 NY State of Health, the Medicaid position, and the fact that no short-term plan is sold in New York — 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.