An estimated 1 in 5 Florida drivers wouldn’t have auto insurance coverage. That’s too many!
However with Uninsured Motorist protection, you don’t should pay the worth for his or her errors.
A hidden hazard awaits those that come to Florida. And no, it’s not hurricanes.
It’s underinsured drivers.
In keeping with 2023 estimates, about 1 in 5 Florida drivers don’t carry any auto insurance coverage. However it isn’t simply uninsured drivers it’s worthwhile to fear about—many extra are underinsured, carrying solely the naked minimal of insurance coverage protection required by legislation.
An accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver can rapidly depart you caught paying medical bills, property damages, and even misplaced wages out-of-pocket. Fortuitously, there’s a dependable option to defend your self: Uninsured Motorist Protection in Florida.
On this information, we’ll clarify precisely what uninsured motorist protection is, why it’s particularly essential right here in Florida, and assist you decide if you really want it (spoiler alert: you in all probability do!).
Why Florida’s State Minimums Aren’t Sufficient
In Florida, you’re required by legislation to hold a minimal stage of auto insurance coverage protection earlier than you’ll be able to register a motorcar. Particularly, two fundamental forms of coverages:
- $10,000 of Private Damage Safety (PIP) and
- $10,000 of Property Injury Legal responsibility (PDL).
At first look, $10,000 could sound like loads of cash, however let’s look nearer.
Property Injury Legal responsibility covers damages you trigger to different individuals’s property. When you dent somebody’s bicycle, certain, $10,000 is lots. However what occurs when you whole a brand-new Audi or Tesla?
As soon as your coverage restrict is exhausted, you’re personally liable for each further greenback. Your insurance coverage will solely cowl as much as your chosen limits, and that may result in wage garnishment or different monetary hardships.
Now let’s have a look at Private Damage Safety (PIP). Florida’s obligatory PIP protection pays your individual medical bills after an accident—no matter who induced it—however it doesn’t cowl accidents you trigger to others. That’s proper: you’ll be able to legally drive with zero bodily harm legal responsibility insurance coverage, leaving anybody you injure utterly uncovered by your coverage.
Drivers caught with out the required insurance coverage face penalties like fines or a suspended license. Sadly, these penalties do nothing to guard you or cowl your medical bills when you’re injured in an accident with an uninsured driver.
In different phrases, the legislation would possibly punish them, however you’re nonetheless left paying the worth.
Merely put, Florida’s auto insurance coverage minimums are nowhere close to sufficient safety for your self or others on the street. Whereas many drivers select these minimal limits to economize, the monetary penalties of an accident can far exceed these fundamental coverages.
Fortuitously, you have got a greater possibility.
What’s Uninsured Motorist Protection (UM)?
Uninsured Motorist Protection (typically abbreviated as “UM protection”) protects you and your passengers when an accident includes an uninsured or underinsured driver. Whereas Florida doesn’t at the moment require uninsured motorist protection by legislation, it’s important nonetheless.
The one sort of UM protection provided in Florida is Uninsured Motorist Bodily Damage (UMBI). It covers medical bills, ache and struggling, and misplaced wages for you and your passengers when you’re injured by a driver with out enough legal responsibility insurance coverage. This contains accidents involving successful and run driver.
UM protection ensures you’re financially protected if one other driver’s lack of auto insurance coverage leaves you holding medical payments. With out it, you could have restricted choices to file a declare to get well damages and bills.
“However I Have Well being Insurance coverage!”
Many drivers mistakenly assume their private medical insurance will totally defend them after an accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver. Sadly, that’s not the case.
Whereas your medical insurance would possibly assist pay a few of your medical bills, it falls brief in a number of essential areas after a automotive accident:
- Misplaced wages: If accidents out of your accident pressure you to overlook work, medical insurance supplies no compensation for the revenue you lose (PIP does!)
- Deductibles and copays: Even with wonderful well being protection, you’ll doubtless face vital out-of-pocket prices for deductibles, copays, or therapies not totally coated by your coverage.
- Protection gaps: Medical health insurance hardly ever covers sure important accident-related therapies, resembling in depth bodily remedy, ongoing rehabilitation, or specialised care required for extreme accidents.
- The “gory” stuff: Uninsured Motorist Bodily Damage can cowl issues like lack of providers, lack of limb, and different everlasting harm or incapacity. Whereas medical insurance would possibly cowl a number of the medical remedy needed, UMC can worth the harm or incapacity and pay you for it.
Solely Uninsured Motorist Protection fills these essential gaps, compensating you immediately for medical prices, misplaced revenue, and the ache and struggling brought on by an accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver. Your private well being plan is necessary, however it’s not sufficient to completely defend you on Florida’s roads.
Varieties of Uninsured Motorist Protection: Stacked vs. Unstacked
In Florida, there are two methods you should purchase uninsured motorist protection: stacked or unstacked.
Stacked Uninsured Motorist Protection
Stacked UM protection permits you to mix—or “stack”—the protection limits of a number of insured automobiles in your coverage. For instance, if in case you have two vehicles, every with a $100,000 UM protection restrict, stacking offers you entry to as much as $200,000 per accident.
Even when you personal only one car, stacked protection can nonetheless be extremely helpful. As an example, whenever you’re driving a short lived substitute car (like a rental automotive), your stacked protection nonetheless applies, successfully supplying you with further safety wherever you drive.
Unstacked Uninsured Motorist Protection
With unstacked UM protection, your protection limits apply individually per car and can’t be mixed. In case your coverage has a restrict of $50,000 per individual and $100,000 per accident, these quantities are fastened per car, no matter what number of automobiles you insure.
Your premiums can be barely larger with stacked protection, however it additionally supplies broader safety, particularly invaluable when coping with extreme accidents or when a number of insured automobiles are concerned.
It’s necessary to rigorously think about your loved ones’s wants, your variety of automobiles, and your threat profile. An impartial insurance coverage agent from Harry Levine Insurance coverage may help you select the kind of UM protection that most closely fits your distinctive state of affairs.
Don’t Pay For Somebody Else’s Mistake
Nonetheless questioning when you want uninsured motorist protection? In Florida, the reply is nearly at all times sure. But, even within the midst of a exhausting insurance coverage market, many Florida drivers are selecting to slash their auto insurance coverage insurance policies to economize.
Sadly, even the most secure drivers can’t management the actions of others on the street. Intoxicated, reckless, inexperienced, and uninsured drivers are a actuality on Central Florida roads—it’s solely a matter of time earlier than you encounter one.
Uninsured Motorist protection in Florida is crucial, however it’s only one a part of complete safety. At Harry Levine Insurance coverage, we place protection above all else, and we expressly warning each shopper in opposition to driving with out UM protection.
Our philosophy is straightforward: Don’t store for insurance coverage solely based mostly on worth. Select insurance policies that ship the protection you want and received’t depart you stranded financially after an auto accident.
Prepared to make sure you’re totally protected? Get a personalised quote on our web site or contact us at this time. We sit up for serving you!
