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 need to 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 is advisable to fear about—many extra are underinsured, carrying solely the naked minimal of insurance coverage protection required by regulation.
An accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver can rapidly go away you caught paying medical bills, property damages, and even misplaced wages out-of-pocket. Happily, there’s a dependable strategy 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 actually need it (spoiler alert: you most likely do!).
Why Florida’s State Minimums Aren’t Sufficient
In Florida, you’re required by regulation to hold a minimal degree of auto insurance coverage protection earlier than you may register a motorized vehicle. Particularly, two fundamental sorts of coverages:
- $10,000 of Private Harm Safety (PIP) and
- $10,000 of Property Harm Legal responsibility (PDL).
At first look, $10,000 might sound like loads of cash, however let’s look nearer.
Property Harm Legal responsibility covers damages you trigger to different folks’s property. In case you dent somebody’s bicycle, positive, $10,000 is loads. However what occurs in case you complete a brand-new Audi or Tesla?
As soon as your coverage restrict is exhausted, you’re personally liable for each extra 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 take a look at Private Harm Safety (PIP). Florida’s obligatory PIP protection pays your personal medical bills after an accident—no matter who triggered it—however it doesn’t cowl accidents you trigger to others. That’s proper: you may 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 in case you’re injured in an accident with an uninsured driver.
In different phrases, the regulation may punish them, however you’re nonetheless left paying the worth.
Merely put, Florida’s auto insurance coverage minimums are nowhere close to satisfactory 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.
Happily, you could have a greater choice.
What’s Uninsured Motorist Protection (UM)?
Uninsured Motorist Protection (usually abbreviated as “UM protection”) protects you and your passengers when an accident entails an uninsured or underinsured driver. Whereas Florida doesn’t at the moment require uninsured motorist protection by regulation, it’s important nonetheless.
The one sort of UM protection supplied in Florida is Uninsured Motorist Bodily Harm (UMBI). It covers medical bills, ache and struggling, and misplaced wages for you and your passengers in case you’re injured by a driver with out adequate legal responsibility insurance coverage. This consists of accidents involving a success 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 better damages and bills.
“However I Have Well being Insurance coverage!”
Many drivers mistakenly assume their private medical health insurance will absolutely defend them after an accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver. Sadly, that’s not the case.
Whereas your medical health insurance may assist pay a few of your medical bills, it falls quick in a number of essential areas after a automobile accident:
- Misplaced wages: If accidents out of your accident pressure you to overlook work, medical health insurance gives no compensation for the revenue you lose (PIP does!)
- Deductibles and copays: Even with glorious well being protection, you’ll possible face important out-of-pocket prices for deductibles, copays, or remedies not absolutely coated by your coverage.
- Protection gaps: Medical insurance not often covers sure important accident-related remedies, reminiscent of in depth bodily remedy, ongoing rehabilitation, or specialised care required for extreme accidents.
- The “gory” stuff: Uninsured Motorist Bodily Harm can cowl issues like lack of companies, lack of limb, and different everlasting harm or incapacity. Whereas medical health insurance may cowl a number of the medical remedy mandatory, UMC can worth the harm or incapacity and pay you for it.
Solely Uninsured Motorist Protection fills these essential gaps, compensating you straight 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 totally defend you on Florida’s roads.
Varieties of Uninsured Motorist Protection: Stacked vs. Unstacked
In Florida, there are two methods you should buy uninsured motorist protection: stacked or unstacked.
Stacked Uninsured Motorist Protection
Stacked UM protection helps you to mix—or “stack”—the protection limits of a number of insured automobiles in your coverage. For instance, when you’ve got two vehicles, every with a $100,000 UM protection restrict, stacking provides you entry to as much as $200,000 per accident.
Even in case you personal only one automobile, stacked protection can nonetheless be extremely useful. As an illustration, once you’re driving a short lived alternative automobile (like a rental automobile), 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 automobile 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 mounted per automobile, no matter what number of automobiles you insure.
Your premiums will probably be barely increased with stacked protection, however it additionally gives broader safety, particularly worthwhile when coping with extreme accidents or when a number of insured automobiles are concerned.
It’s necessary to fastidiously take into account your loved ones’s wants, your variety of automobiles, and your danger profile. An unbiased insurance coverage agent from Harry Levine Insurance coverage might help you select the kind of UM protection that most closely fits your distinctive scenario.
Don’t Pay For Somebody Else’s Mistake
Nonetheless questioning in case 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 consumer in opposition to driving with out UM protection.
Our philosophy is easy: Don’t store for insurance coverage solely primarily based on worth. Select insurance policies that ship the protection you want and gained’t go away you stranded financially after an auto accident.
Prepared to make sure you’re absolutely protected? Get a personalised quote on our web site or contact us right now. We look ahead to serving you!
