How Much Car Insurance Do You Need in Florida?

How much car insurance do you need in Florida? The short answer

Two definitions will help as you read. Liability coverage responds to claims other people make against you after a crash you cause, and it pays for your legal defense. Limits are the most a coverage pays, written as a per-person and per-accident pair for injuries and a single number for property damage, which is why the shorthand looks like 100/300/100.

The legal floor: what Florida requires to register a car

Florida is a no-fault state, and its registration requirement is short. To register a car with four or more wheels the state requires $10,000 of personal injury protection, which responds to your own medical bills and lost wages after a crash regardless of who caused it, and $10,000 of property damage liability, which responds to damage you cause to other people’s cars and property. Florida is one of the few states that does not require bodily injury liability of most drivers; it requires bodily injury limits only of some drivers under its financial responsibility law, after certain accidents, suspensions or convictions. Our Florida auto insurance page covers the registration rules and the proof of insurance the state accepts. The full requirement, PIP mechanics and the repeal bill history are on our Florida car insurance requirements page.

That floor is why the question on this page exists. A driver carrying only the floor who injures another person has no coverage that responds to the injury claim and no policy paying for a defense, and a driver hit by someone carrying the floor is looking at $10,000 of the other driver’s property damage coverage and nothing for their own injuries. Everything below the floor on the ladder is about closing those two gaps.

The limits ladder: what each step is designed to protect

Bodily injury and property damage liability come in steps, and each step is built for a different size of claim. The ladder is the fastest way to see where a household belongs.

The liability limits ladder, from the floor to the umbrella

The shorthand reads bodily injury per person / bodily injury per accident / property damage. Every line responds according to the policy’s own terms. There is no formula that turns income or net worth into a limit; the ladder shows what each step is built for, and the number is chosen with your agent.

Two things about the ladder are worth saying out loud. The steps are not arbitrary: 100/300 is the level most vehicle leases require, which is why so many households land there, and most umbrella carriers ask for more underneath them, commonly 250/500 bodily injury or a $300,000 or $500,000 combined single limit on the auto, $300,000 of liability on the home, and similar limits on watercraft and motorcycle policies. And the top rung is a different policy, not a bigger auto policy, because an umbrella adds liability above both the auto and the homeowners limits at once, and it is usually the least expensive way to add a large amount of protection. Our umbrella insurance page explains how that layer is chosen without a formula.

Minimum versus what most Florida households carry

The table below puts Florida’s minimum beside what most preferred-risk households carry, line by line. It is a description of what we see on the policies we place, and it is not a rule; every household sets its own limits with its agent, and every carrier is slightly different about what it offers.

The legal minimum beside what most preferred-risk Florida households carry

No premiums appear in this table on purpose. Prices change with the household, the cars and the carrier, and we quote the whole package rather than a line at a time.

Uninsured motorist coverage: the Florida must-have

Uninsured motorist coverage is the line Florida households most often skip and most often regret. Roughly 15 to 20 percent of Florida drivers carry no coverage at all, according to the Insurance Research Council, and a much larger share carry only the floor, which has no bodily injury coverage in it. Uninsured motorist coverage, usually written UM, is designed to respond to your own injuries and your family’s when the driver who hit you has no bodily injury coverage or not enough of it. It steps into the place of the coverage the other driver should have had.

Florida law shapes how UM is sold. Under section 627.727 of the Florida Statutes, every policy with bodily injury liability must offer UM at limits equal to the bodily injury limits, and you can reject it or select lower limits only by signing a form the state approved that warns you what you are giving up. The statute also issues UM on a stacked basis unless you sign a separate form selecting non-stacked, and it requires a non-stacked policy to be priced at least 20 percent lower. Stacked UM adds the limits of every car on the policy together and carries none of the limitations the statute allows on the non-stacked form; non-stacked applies one car’s limit and provides no UM in a vehicle you own that is not insured for UM under the policy. Both forms follow you into a borrowed or rented car and onto the sidewalk. We recommend UM at limits equal to your bodily injury limits, stacked, because the coverage is protecting the people in your own household. Our page on stacked versus non-stacked UM goes deeper, and the FAQ below answers the health-insurance question we hear most. Our stacked vs. non-stacked uninsured motorist page covers the election and the limitations in detail.

PIP and medical payments: what no-fault does and does not do

Personal injury protection is Florida’s no-fault layer, and it works the same on every policy because the statute writes its terms. PIP responds to 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost wages, up to $10,000, for you and the resident relatives and passengers the form describes, regardless of who caused the crash. Two rules trip people up. You must receive initial treatment within 14 days of the crash for PIP to respond at all, and the $10,000 is available in full only when a qualifying provider determines you had an emergency medical condition; without that determination the medical benefit is limited to $2,500. Florida has not repealed PIP. Bills to replace it with a bodily-injury-based system have been filed in several sessions, and none has become law, so the no-fault rules above still apply.

Medical payments coverage, called MedPay, is optional and neutral. It responds to the 20 percent of medical bills PIP leaves and to costs above the PIP limit, regardless of fault, and carriers offer it in small steps. It also reaches where PIP does not: you as a pedestrian or a passenger outside Florida, a rental or borrowed car in another state, passengers in your car who carry PIP on a vehicle of their own, since they look to their own PIP first but can collect your MedPay, and, on many forms, a funeral benefit. Households with high-deductible health plans tend to value it; households with strong health coverage sometimes skip it. Neither choice is wrong, and it is one of the few lines on the policy where a small change in premium buys a clear, specific benefit.

Collision and comprehensive: the keep-or-drop method

Collision responds to damage to your own car in a crash, whoever caused it. Comprehensive responds to damage from almost everything else: flood, fire, theft, vandalism, a falling limb, an animal strike, a windshield cracked by debris. A lender requires both on a financed or leased car, and the decision to keep or drop them on a car you own outright is a math problem rather than a coverage question.

The method we use with clients has three steps. Look up what the car would bring in a private sale today, because that is roughly what a total-loss settlement is based on, less your deductible. Multiply the annual premium for collision and comprehensive by the years you expect to keep the car. If the premium over that period approaches a large share of what the car is worth after the deductible, the coverage is buying less each year, and many owners drop collision first and keep comprehensive, because comprehensive is inexpensive and Florida’s flood, theft and windshield losses run through it. A car you cannot replace out of pocket next week stays insured no matter what the math says. If the car is financed, ask about gap coverage, which responds to the difference between the loan balance and the settlement, and our rental car page explains how your policy travels with you when you rent.

Glass, roadside and PIP claims: what Florida law says and what your carrier decides

Windshields are the auto claim Florida law speaks to most directly. Under section 627.7288 of the Florida Statutes, the deductible on a policy with comprehensive coverage does not apply to damage to the windshield. The rule reaches the windshield only, not side or rear glass, and it depends on your carrying comprehensive; a policy without comprehensive has no glass coverage to waive a deductible on. Since July 1, 2023, section 627.7289 also prohibits assigning the benefits of a glass claim to a repair shop after a loss and bars shops from offering an inducement for making a glass claim, which ended the parking-lot windshield offers many Florida drivers remember.

Three practical points follow. Most newer cars carry cameras and sensors behind the windshield that have to be recalibrated after a replacement, so ask whether recalibration is included in the glass claim before the work is scheduled. Whether a glass claim affects your renewal is policy-dependent and varies by carrier; some do not count glass claims, some do. And a glass claim, like every claim, is filed with the carrier, usually through the carrier’s glass program, which schedules the shop and handles the billing. Roadside assistance is an inexpensive add-on on most policies, and a roadside call is generally not treated the way a collision claim is, though the carrier’s own rules govern.

Multi-car households, the bundle and the layer above

A household’s cars belong on one policy in most cases, because a multi-car policy earns a discount, shares the UM limit across the cars when it is stacked, and keeps every driver in the household listed on one set of limits. Everyone who lives in the home, licensed or not, should be disclosed and either listed as a driver or specifically excluded, because an unlisted household driver may be treated as a misrepresentation when a claim is reviewed. Our page on who has to be on a Florida car insurance policy covers the list; the rule is that the carrier wants to know about everyone under your roof, licensed or not. For a new driver in the house, see adding a teen driver to your Florida car insurance.

The bundle matters here too. Most carriers price the auto policy lower when the home is with them, and a bundled auto policy often runs on a twelve-month term instead of six, which holds the rate for a full year. Our home, auto and umbrella bundle page works through a full household. Above the auto policy sits the umbrella, and we recommend adding uninsured-motorist coverage to the umbrella as well, because an umbrella without it protects other people from you and does nothing for your own family above the auto policy’s UM limit. If you split the year between Florida and another state, our second home and snowbird insurance page explains where the car and the umbrella are written.

How to set your limits with your agent

No calculator sets these limits well, because the inputs are the household rather than the car. These are the questions we work through with clients, and the answers are what the carriers will ask us for.

• What you own and what you earn, because liability limits are there to protect both from a claim against you, and an umbrella is the least expensive way to protect a lot of either.
• Which cars are financed or leased, because the lender sets a floor on collision and comprehensive, and a lease usually requires 100/300.
• Who lives in the household, licensed or not, and any regular driver who lives elsewhere.
• How each car is used, because a long commute, a work vehicle or a car kept in another state each change the quote.
• Your health coverage and deductible, which shape the MedPay decision without changing the UM one.
• Whether you carry or want an umbrella, because the umbrella carrier tells us the auto limits it requires underneath it.
• The value of each car you own outright, so the keep-or-drop math on collision and comprehensive can be run with real numbers.

From there we recommend comparing 6+ carriers on the same limits and deductibles, so the quotes differ on price and service rather than coverage, and quoting the auto policy alongside the home and umbrella so the whole household is priced at once. Our Florida auto insurance page explains how the quote works from there.