GoKawiilCalifornia's $30,000 minimum auto insurance hasn't changed since 1967
California still requires drivers to carry only $15,000 per person and $30,000 per crash in liability insurance, a threshold set in 1967 and never updated for inflation. By contrast, actuarial estimates now put the cost of a fatal traffic death at roughly $1.6 million, meaning the mandated coverage covers a small fraction of the real financial harm a driver can cause. Massachusetts, which pioneered mandatory insurance in 1927 with a $5,000 minimum (about $96,000 today), only recently raised its own outdated cap to $25,000.