Florida Auto Insurance: "Full Coverage" Is Minimal Coverage

BY BRIAN D. GURALNICK, ESQUIRE

In evaluating the value of your injury claim, your recovery is typically limited to the amount of insurance coverage available. Sure, you can potentially obtain a million dollar judgment against someone, but if that person does not have a million dollars in the bank or other attachable assets, good luck trying to collect on that judgment. Most assets, like a house or a 401k have certain protections from judgment creditors. Also, the person against whom a large judgement is obtained may file for bankruptcy which could leave you with nothing to collect. That is why Uninsured/Underinsured (UM) is such an important elective coverage to purchase.

If you purchase UM coverage, then if the person who hits you has little or no bodily injury liability insurance, then you can recover from your own insurance company the difference of what is owed to you. For instance, if the person who causes a car crash has $25,000 in bodily injury liability coverage to pay for your injuries, and your total damages are $100,000,

What may surprise many of you is that Florida does not require people to carry any bodily injury liability coverage to pay for injuries they cause. Florida requires only two types of auto coverage: (1) Personal Injury Protection/No-Fault (PIP), which pays 80% of one’s own medical expenses and 60% of one’s own lost wages up to $10,000. (2) Property Damage Liability (PDL) which pays for property damages one may cause to another up to $10,000. Therefore, if you are injured in a car crash caused by someone who only has this state required minimum, then you will not have any insurance benefits available to collect for your injuries other than your PIP. That is why purchasing plenty of UM is very important. So when someone tells me they have “Full Coverage”, it usually means that have the state required minimum, which is not a good thing for my client, nor their case.

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