Auto insurance minimums in Tennessee
Tennessee requires drivers to carry auto liability insurance, and the minimum limits are 25/50/25. Written out, that is $25,000 of bodily injury liability per person, $50,000 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. 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.
Tennessee's minimums are $25,000 bodily injury per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 property damage, set out in Tennessee Code Annotated section 55-12-102. The property damage figure is worth pausing on: it moved up from $15,000 to $25,000 on 1 January 2023, which sounds like progress until it is compared with what is actually on the road. A serious crash can still exceed all three figures, and the minimum is a floor, not a recommendation.
The minimums are for private passenger vehicles, and they are not the only cover the state requires. Tennessee requires liability cover only, at the minimums above. Uninsured motorist cover is not required: insurers must offer it, but a driver can reject it in writing under Tennessee Code Annotated section 56-7-1201. Check the declarations page — a rejection made years ago may still be on the policy. 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 Tennessee
Tennessee is an at-fault, or tort, state. After a crash, the driver who caused it — or rather that driver's insurer — pays for the other driver's injuries, and the injured driver has to show the other driver was at fault. There is no PIP requirement, no first-party payment before fault is decided, and no threshold limiting the right to sue for pain and suffering. Tennessee also has one of the higher uninsured driver rates in the country — roughly one in five Tennessee drivers is on the road with no insurance at all, according to a 2025 Insurance Research Council study using 2023 claims data — which makes the uninsured motorist decision more important here than in most states.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is the protection against the other driver's lack of cover, and its position in Tennessee is: uninsured motorist cover is offered but not required, and can be rejected in writing. Given the share of uninsured drivers in Tennessee, rejecting it is a decision to weigh carefully: it removes the protection against the one crash in five where the other driver has no cover at all. 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. Tennessee is not a no-fault state, so there is no PIP requirement and no threshold on suing. The at-fault driver's liability pays for injuries, once fault is established. 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 Tennessee
No state law in Tennessee 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 best homeowners guide explains how to judge a policy for the house rather than by a ranking.
A standard homeowners policy in Tennessee 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 Tennessee 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 Tennessee
Health cover in Tennessee runs through the marketplace: Tennessee residents enroll in marketplace cover through HealthCare.gov. Enroll through HealthCare.gov for marketplace cover and premium tax credits. Tennessee runs no state marketplace of its own. 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 Tennessee: Tennessee has not adopted Medicaid expansion, so most adults without children do not qualify for Medicaid on income alone — the coverage gap applies here. 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. Tennessee has not expanded Medicaid, so adults below the poverty level often get neither Medicaid nor marketplace tax credits — the coverage gap. Parents of minor children may qualify under the state's narrower rules, and children can still get Medicaid or CHIP. Check eligibility on the state's pages rather than assuming it.
Short-term health insurance in Tennessee: Short-term health plans are sold in Tennessee, under the federal duration position and state law — check the policy's own term and the short-term hub guide before buying. Because Tennessee has not expanded Medicaid, the marketplace and COBRA routes matter more here than in expansion states — check a special enrollment period before buying a short-term plan. 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 Tennessee is regulated by the Tennessee Department of Commerce 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 Tennessee, run the checks in this order. First, the licence: is the insurer licensed in Tennessee, 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 Tennessee buying a first policy. She starts with the state minimums — 25/50/25 — 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, and checks what the extra cover costs. She reads the fault section above and notes that there is no PIP paying her medical bills while fault is decided, and that roughly one Tennessee driver in five is uninsured, so her uninsured motorist decision matters more than it would elsewhere. 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 Tennessee — 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.