Auto · Updated October 2026
Liability coverage pays for harm you cause to other people. Their injuries, their vehicle, their property. It pays nothing toward your own car, no matter who was at fault, and nothing toward your own injuries.
So after an at-fault accident with liability-only coverage, the other driver gets repaired and you do not. If your car is totalled, that is your loss to absorb.
Missouri's minimum is 25/50/25 — $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 for everyone injured in the accident, $25,000 for property damage — plus $25,000/$50,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage. Kansas and Oklahoma set their own requirements, and Kansas additionally requires personal injury protection.
Full coverage is not a product and does not appear on any policy. It is shorthand for liability plus two more coverages:
Collision pays to repair or replace your vehicle after a collision, regardless of fault, subject to your deductible.
Comprehensive pays for almost everything else that happens to your vehicle: hail, theft, fire, vandalism, flood, a falling branch, and — the one that matters most on Missouri's rural roads — hitting a deer.
What full coverage really means goes through this in more detail, including why two "full coverage" quotes can be very different policies.
This is the decision most people are actually trying to make, and it comes down to one comparison.
Find what collision and comprehensive add to your premium per year. Then find what your vehicle is realistically worth. Subtract your deductible from the vehicle's value — that is the most the coverage could ever pay you.
A worked example. Your car is worth about $3,000. Collision and comprehensive cost $420 a year with a $1,000 deductible. The most you could collect on a total loss is $2,000. You are paying $420 a year to protect $2,000, and after five years without a claim you have spent more than the car is worth.
Now the same arithmetic on a $22,000 vehicle. The most you could collect is $21,000, and the coverage might cost $700. That is a straightforward yes.
The rough rule people use is that physical damage stops earning its keep when annual premium approaches about ten percent of what the vehicle is worth. It is a guide rather than a rule, and two things override it.
A loan or a lease. If the vehicle is financed, the lender requires collision and comprehensive. That is contractual, not optional, and dropping them puts you in default — lenders generally respond by force-placing far more expensive coverage and billing you.
Whether you could replace it tomorrow. This matters more than the arithmetic. If your car were totalled on the way home and the insurance paid nothing, could you write a cheque for a replacement without it being a crisis? If the honest answer is no, keep the coverage even when the maths says otherwise. Insurance exists for losses you cannot absorb, not for losses that are merely annoying.
An option many people do not know exists: you can often drop collision while keeping comprehensive. It is usually the cheaper half, and in this region it covers the things most likely to happen to a parked or rural-driven car — hail, deer, theft, a tree limb.
For an older vehicle in southwest Missouri that is frequently the sensible middle ground. Hail alone totals a lot of cars here.
Dropping physical damage is a calculated decision about your own property. Carrying minimum liability is a different thing entirely, because the exposure has no ceiling.
Missouri's $25,000 property damage limit is the one to look at hard. Newer trucks and SUVs routinely cost more than that to repair, and a multi-vehicle accident passes it easily. Anything above your limit comes from you — and a judgment can reach wages, savings and home equity.
For most households, pricing 100/300/100 alongside the minimum is worth the minute it takes. The difference is usually far smaller than people assume, because the first dollars of liability coverage are the expensive ones.
Keep uninsured motorist coverage too. It is inexpensive, and it is what pays when the at-fault driver has nothing.
Send us your declarations page and tell us roughly what the vehicle is worth. We will price liability only, liability with comprehensive, and full coverage side by side, with a second set of liability limits alongside, so you can see the actual gap rather than guessing at it.
Sometimes the answer is that you are overpaying to protect a car that is not worth protecting. Sometimes it is that you are a $25,000 property damage claim away from a serious problem. Either way it is better to know.
Questions about your own situation? Call 417.623.8300 or send us your current policy. We are licensed in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Tell us what you need covered and we will shop it across dozens of carriers.