Uninsured Motorist Coverage for Marion County Drivers

Florida's registration requirement for a vehicle with at least four wheels is $10,000 PIP and $10,000 property damage liability. Bodily injury liability is not required for standard registration.

So a driver can be entirely legal and still have no coverage at all for injuries they cause to someone else. If that driver hits you, your PIP pays 80 percent of reasonable expenses for medically necessary services, up to $10,000, and then it stops.

Uninsured motorist coverage is what picks it up from there. It is coverage you buy on your own policy, against other people's lack of coverage.

Florida allows insurers to offer non-stacking uninsured motorist coverage, and the difference matters on a multi-vehicle policy.

Stacked adds the coverage on two or more vehicles together.

Non-stacking does not add the coverage across vehicles. Under s. 627.727, you must accept non-stacking on an approved form, and it must carry an uninsured motorist premium reduction of at least 20 percent.

Stacked is worth pricing on a household with several vehicles. Uninsured motorist coverage must be included unless a named insured rejects it in writing on a form approved by the Office of Insurance Regulation, which tells you how consequential the state considers the choice.

If you have ever signed a form declining this coverage without it being explained, it is worth revisiting.

It does not fix your car. Damage to your vehicle from an uninsured driver is generally handled by collision coverage.

It does not apply to injuries you cause to others; those fall to the liability side of the same policy, which is a different coverage.