Florida Auto Insurance

Requirements

Every state sets a minimum requirement for auto insurance coverages. If you register your vehicle in Florida then the state requires you to carry $10,000 Property Damage (PD) and $10,000 Personal Injury Protection (PIP) to receive your license plates from the state. The PD coverage pays for damages you cause to other people's property. The PIP pays a portion of the medical bills (80%) and lost wages (60%) for the occupants of your vehicle, including yourself, if you become injured in an automobile accident. In addition, if you failed to also purchase Bodily Injury (BI) coverage prior to the accident, you could find yourself in serious financial and legal trouble. The reason for this is that the State of Florida enforces a higher standard of required coverages if you become involved in an accident resulting in injuries. Florida mandates that you have $10,000 minimum Bodily Injury of coverage at the time of the accident. If you do not have this coverage and a legal judgment is made against you by a third party for injuries, then the State of Florida can suspend your license and tags for 20 years unless you pay the judgment in full. Even if you pay the judgment in full, your troubles are just beginning. The State will reinstate your license, but compel you to carry a bond (SR-22) as part of insurance policy for the next three years. This will add thousands of dollars to your insurance premiums. If you fail to keep up with your premiums, the State will suspend your license. Therefore never buy an auto insurance policy in the State of Florida without Bodily Injury coverage.

Important Coverages
Comprehensive and Collision coverages are easier for most to understand. These coverages protect your vehicle. Collision pays for damages sustained by your vehicle when it collides with another vehicle, fixed object or upset (rollover). Comprehensive pays for damages sustained to your vehicle involving fire, flood, theft, vandalism or impact with an animal. Your decision is to decide whether you feel your vehicle is worth insuring. If you have a loan on a vehicle, your lien holder will require that you carry these two coverages. You can decide what deductibles you would like. The deductible is the amount that you are responsible to cover in the event of a loss. There is one nice feature regarding Comprehensive coverage in Florida. The State of Florida requires insurance companies to replace damaged windshields at no cost to the insured (the deductible does not apply). Therefore if a rock chips your windshield on the highway, it can be replaced for free. Rental reimbursement pays for the use of a rental vehicle while your vehicle is being repaired by a covered loss. On most standard policies, rental costs about $50 a year in premium. The average cost of a rental is about $250 a week, this coverage clearly covers its own costs.

Crucial Coverage
Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist coverage (UM) is a coverage that is most often overlooked by people. Not having this coverage can result in devastating personal financial loss in the event of injuries to yourself and the occupants of your vehicle. In fact the State of Florida considers this coverage so important that it requires insurance companies to get policy purchasers (you) to sign a waiver if you decline to purchase UM coverage. UM pays medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering to you and the occupants of your vehicle as a result of an accident in which you are not at fault. Remember that PIP coverage pays only a portion of medical and lost wages not to exceed $10,000. One can easily see how this can be exhausted in the event of serious injury such as a broken leg (couple of surgeries + physical therapy = $50,000) and or a long period off work.

UM coverage also protects you if you are hit by another vehicle while you are pedestrian. It can also protect you if you are in somebody else's vehicle when the accident occurs. If you have an auto policy, the UM portion would transfer to your motorcycle (UM stacked only)should you be hit by another vehicle. It is an all encompassing coverage. If you think insurance agents are simply trying to oversell insurance, simply contact any injury attorney in the state of Florida and ask the attorney if it is a good idea to purchase UM coverage. If you have two cars or more, UM is sold as stacked or non-stacked. If you purchase $100,000/300,000 UM for each vehicle then stacked means the UM coverage's are combined to give you $200,000/$600,000. Stacked is expensive possible adding $250 every six months over the standard 100/300 coverage. However, you could simply get non-stacked for $300,000/300,000 for about $50 extra. Cars can be easily fixed or replaced, human life cannot.

Call us today, (954) 917-1707 or email us so we can assess the situation for you.