Louisiana’s required minimum auto liability is 15/30/25 — $15,000 for injury to one person, $30,000 for everyone in the accident, $25,000 for property damage.
Those numbers were set a long time ago and have not kept pace with anything.
What the minimum actually buys
$25,000 in property damage doesn’t total a late-model pickup. $15,000 in bodily injury is an ambulance ride, an ER visit, and imaging — before treatment.
When the damage exceeds your limits, your carrier pays up to the limit and stops. The rest is yours, and in Louisiana that means a claim against your wages and your assets.
What to carry instead
For most households we write, 100/300/100 is the sensible floor: $100,000 per person, $300,000 per accident, $100,000 property damage.
Here’s the part people don’t expect: going from 15/30/25 to 100/300/100 usually costs far less than people assume — often a modest monthly difference. Liability is the cheapest coverage per dollar of protection on the whole policy. It’s the collision and comprehensive that carry the premium.
If you own a home, have savings, or earn a good income, an umbrella policy on top — typically $1M for a few hundred dollars a year — is the best value in personal insurance. It sits above both auto and home.
Uninsured motorist is the one to pay attention to
Louisiana has one of the highest uninsured driver rates in the country, and a large share of the drivers who are insured carry the 15/30/25 minimum. If one of them hurts you, their policy runs out long before your medical bills do.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage is your own policy stepping in where theirs stopped. It protects you and your family — including as pedestrians and as passengers in someone else’s car.
Louisiana requires the carrier to offer it, and requires you to sign a specific form to reject it or take it at lower limits. A lot of people signed that form years ago to save a few dollars and have no memory of doing it.
Go look at your dec page. If UM shows as rejected or at low limits, that’s the first thing to fix — and generally the highest-value change available to you.
The quick audit
- Liability at least 100/300/100.
- UM/UIM matching your liability limits, not rejected.
- Comprehensive and collision deductibles you could actually pay tomorrow.
- Rental reimbursement and towing if being without a car would be a problem.
- Gap coverage if you owe more on the vehicle than it’s worth.
Send us your declarations page and we’ll mark up all five, whether or not you end up moving the policy to us.
This is general information about how coverage typically works in Louisiana, not advice about your specific policy. Policy language, carrier practice, and state law all change, and yours may differ from what's described here. Your policy and its endorsements are the contract. For an answer that applies to you, send us your declarations page or call (225) 347-4185.Red Stick Insurance Agency · Louisiana licence #1260833 · NPN 22128563.