Colorado · Collision is a contract, not the legal floor
Colorado does not require collision. Your lender often does.
The coverage that satisfies Colorado’s financial-responsibility rule is liability: $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $15,000 for property damage. That pays other people when you are at fault. Collision pays damage to your own car from a crash or an overturn, after your collision deductible. The state does not require it on a car you own outright. A loan or a lease usually does, because the car is the collateral. That requirement is in the finance contract, not in the liability minimum.
A total loss is usually settled at actual cash value: what the car was worth a moment before the crash, minus the deductible. Depreciation is already in that number. If you still owe more than that value, collision does not pay the loan off. Gap is a separate endorsement, and it pays only the difference the form describes. A new-car or stated-amount endorsement is also separate. Mechanical wear is not collision and not comprehensive.
The pieces, one page each: collision, comprehensive, liability, what “full coverage” leaves out, and the rest of the options. The legal-floor walkthrough is Colorado car insurance laws. The regulator’s auto page is the Colorado Division of Insurance.
