Will My Car Insurance Cover My Out of State Travels?

Your auto insurance policy will cover you wherever you drive in the US for short travels. Most policies cover travels to Canada as well but don’t cover Mexico. When you travel to another state, your current vehicle insurance will provide at least the minimum coverage required in states you visit as well as honoring your physical damages and other coverages. This rule holds even if the state you are traveling in has a higher or different minimum coverage requirements than your home state.

For example, if you are from Georgia and currently visiting Florida, your Georgian policy will offer you the minimum coverage required in Florida even though it has no-fault requirements. And if you travel to North Carolina, your liability limits will increase to meet the requirements there.

Not only for liability, your coverage will still work as intended for other damages as well. For example, if you have full coverage and you had an accident out of state, your vehicle insurance will still repair or replace your car if it is beyond repair. With most companies, your roadside assistance helps you in other states as well within the limits of your coverage.

Motorists often travel in or through other states for work and pleasure. This could be a daily in and out of a neighboring state journey or multi-state road trip with many short stopovers. No matter where they are from, standard vehicle insurance policies arranged at home offer coverage for driving in all states and often in Canada without the need to make any special arrangements.

This is one convenience that is probably necessary for US drivers to move freely and enjoy other parts of the country. Home is where the main residence, tax and voting registration are, as well as where you register cars. Therefore, you arrange your car insurance at home.

The distinction between travelling through and living in another state is very important. So, as long as you don’t take a base, rent or buy a house and live in one location for longer than several weeks you should be considered traveling and not living in that place. Then, you can go in and out as many times as you need and travel as far as you can go.

When you are traveling between or through states your current home state vehicle insurance will provide coverage for this journey. However, when you move to another state, you have a grace period of 30 – 90 days to switch your policy to comply with your new state’s requirements. Even if your current insurer operates there too, you will still need to arrange a new policy in due course.

If you are traveling to Mexico, you may be able to arrange temporary additional coverage with your current automobile insurer for your journey. Although Mexico requires that you buy vehicle insurance from one of the Mexican insurers, the US carriers have arrangements with carriers over there and therefore can sell you coverage for Mexican trips.