Here in New Zealand you aren’t required to have insurance at all, although every gets healthcare and lost wages paid for (ACC) in cases of injury, which is a kind of insurance.
Here’s a comparison of US public subsidization of the costs of driving, from the same blog:
> Vernon gained infamy in the late 1950s and early 1960s due to the improbably high percentage of residents who made insurance claims for lost limbs, leading to an investigation of whether residents of the city were intentionally dismembering themselves for the insurance money. These insurance claims from Vernon, with a population of 500 to 800, accounted for as many as 2/3 of claims nationally, but there was no way of proving that any particular amputation was deliberate.[9] This led to Vernon being referred to as "nub city" during this period. In 1980, Errol Morris attempted to make a documentary about this phenomenon, but after being threatened by city residents and physically attacked by one, he changed the focus of the film, resulting in the 1981 documentary film Vernon, Florida.
I’d prefer to be covered at double those amounts in case of some crazy and unlikely scenario like getting in an accident with a G Wagon where the other driver dies. There’s also $40M aggregate of personal injury protection.
The California Low Cost Auto Insurance (CLCA) program provides liability coverage limits of up to $10,000 for bodily injury or death per person, $20,000 per accident, and $3,000 for property damage. This program is designed to help income-eligible residents afford basic auto insurance.
That helps explain the California part of the headline
Of course, all that is in the past with the GOP legislature’s big changes to the statutes and DeSantis’s appointment of pro-insurer judges throughout the state.
toomuchtodo•47m ago
Paying for Driving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49665196 - September 2026