Florida car insurance rules: what the statutes require, what they leave out and what a lapse costs

Florida requires every registered car to carry personal injury protection and $10,000 of property damage liability, and in the statutes we read it does not require bodily injury liability coverage for an ordinary driver. That omission shapes the rest of the state’s system: a driver who injures someone seriously can be sued personally, a statute now gives that person two years to sue, and a lapse in the required coverage costs $150, $250 or $500 to reinstate, depending on how often it has happened.

Chapter 2023-15 appears in the history of the statutes that now set the two-year suit limit, bar recovery by a plaintiff more than 50 percent at fault, limit medical-expense evidence and narrow bad faith suits against insurers, so the lawsuit that follows a Florida crash is a different proceeding from the one drivers heard about a few years ago. Every rule here is from the 2026 Florida Statutes on the Florida Senate website, read 2026-10-23, with the section cited. Claim-payment deadlines, personal injury protection benefit amounts and FR-44 filings are covered in their own guides, linked where they come up.

Estimates and published averages, not a quote. Not insurance advice. State rules and insurer rules vary. Confirm requirements with your state insurance regulator or a licensed agent in your state.

What Florida makes you carry, and the coverage it leaves out

Two sections set the mandatory floor. Section 627.733 requires the owner or registrant of a registered motor vehicle to maintain personal injury protection (PIP) security continuously throughout the registration or licensing period. Section 324.022 requires the owner or operator to maintain the ability to respond in damages for property damage to others of $10,000 in any one crash, which a policy can meet with $10,000 of property damage liability or with $30,000 of combined single limit for property damage and bodily injury. Section 627.7275 ties the two together: a policy that provides PIP may not be issued unless it also provides property damage liability as required by section 324.022.

What does not appear in those sections is a requirement to carry coverage for the injuries you cause to others. Bodily injury liability limits appear in the financial responsibility chapter, where section 324.021(7) defines proof of financial responsibility as the ability to respond in damages of $10,000 for one person, $20,000 for two or more persons and $10,000 for property damage. That is the standard a driver must meet after certain events, such as a crash that triggers the financial responsibility law, and the standard an insurer’s policy must satisfy when it is furnished as proof. It is not, in the text we read, a coverage every registered driver must carry before a crash.

A driver who carries only the floor is legal and exposed. Property damage liability of $10,000 is what the car in front of you costs when it is a new truck, not a ten-year-old sedan, and the absence of bodily injury coverage means the insurer has no duty to defend or pay an injury claim against you. The how much car insurance do you need guide works the sizing question; the Florida rules below explain why the question is sharper here than in most states.

The no-fault bargain: the injuries you cannot sue over

Florida pairs PIP with a limit on lawsuits. Section 627.737(1) exempts the owner, registrant, operator or occupant of a vehicle with required security from tort liability for bodily injury to the extent that the PIP benefits in section 627.736(1) are payable for the injury, or would be payable but for an authorized exclusion. The exemption is a trade: your own PIP pays regardless of fault, and in return the person you injure generally cannot sue you for those benefits.

The exemption has a threshold. Under 627.737(2), a plaintiff may recover damages in tort for pain, suffering, mental anguish and inconvenience only if the injury consists in whole or in part of one of four things: significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function; permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement; significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement; or death. A defendant who doubts the threshold can ask the court, once, 30 days before the trial or pretrial hearing, to examine the pleadings and evidence and dismiss the claim without prejudice if the plaintiff cannot submit some evidence of meeting it (627.737(3)).

The statute also removes protection from those who ignore the requirement. Under 627.733(4), the owner of a vehicle for which security is required who fails to have it in effect at the time of an accident has no immunity from tort liability and is personally liable for the PIP benefits, with the rights and obligations of an insurer. The practical result is that an uninsured owner cannot use the no-fault exemption to answer an injured person’s claim and may owe benefits directly.

Punitive damages are addressed in 627.737(4): in an action against an automobile liability insurer for damages above its policy limits, no claim for punitive damages is allowed. The amounts and timing of PIP benefits are in the MedPay versus PIP guide.

When the other driver has only the floor: what a lawsuit looks like now

The absence of mandatory bodily injury liability means a serious injury can end up outside any liability policy. Take a plain example, with assumed numbers. Driver A carries PIP and $10,000 of property damage liability and no bodily injury liability. Driver B is hurt in a crash A caused, has $60,000 of medical bills beyond PIP, and meets the permanent-injury threshold. B’s claim for economic loss above PIP and for pain and suffering is a tort claim against A personally, and A has no liability policy to defend it or pay it. Whether B can collect depends on A’s assets, and on whether B carries uninsured motorist coverage, which the next section covers.

Since 2023 the statutes say more about how that lawsuit proceeds. Four provisions matter to a driver on either side, and each is quoted here from the statute text in the 2026 edition.

Take the first row with a date. If a crash happens on October 1, 2026, a plain reading of the two-year provision puts the last day to file a negligence suit at October 1, 2028. Accrual and tolling rules can move that date, so a lawyer, not a calendar, should fix it; the point is that the window is two years, which can be short against the time a serious injury takes to resolve. The second row matters to your own claim: if an insurer or jury finds you more than 50 percent at fault for your own harm, the statute bars your recovery altogether, a different rule from systems that reduce damages in proportion.

The fourth row is the one a policyholder should know about in advance. An insurer that faces a claim with sufficient evidence has a 90-day window to tender the lesser of the limit and the demand; do it, and a bad faith action over that claim cannot lie. The same statute says the insured, the claimant and their representatives have a duty to act in good faith in furnishing information and setting deadlines, and a trier of fact may reduce damages against an insurer if they did not. A demand letter with a short deadline is therefore not the whole of the clock.

One more tool sits in section 627.4137: within 30 days of a written request, a liability insurer must provide a statement under oath setting out the name of the insurer and insured, the limits of liability coverage, any coverage defense it reasonably believes is available, and a copy of the policy. If you are the injured party, that is how you learn in a month whether the other driver has coverage worth pursuing. The insured, or the insured’s agent, must also disclose the name and coverage of each known insurer on written request.

Uninsured motorist coverage: a rejection you must sign

If the at-fault driver has no bodily injury liability, your own uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is the protection that answers. Section 627.727(1) requires that a motor vehicle liability policy providing bodily injury liability coverage include uninsured motor vehicle coverage, in or supplemental to the policy, for persons insured who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles. The coverage does not apply, or applies to a lower limit, only if a named insured rejects it in writing on a form approved by the Office of Insurance Regulation. Florida also lets an insurer offer a non-stacking version of the coverage under subsection (8); the arithmetic of stacked and unstacked limits is worked in stacked vs unstacked uninsured motorist coverage.

The form must carry a heading in 12-point bold type: “You are electing not to purchase certain valuable coverage which protects you and your family or you are purchasing uninsured motorist limits less than your bodily injury liability limits when you sign this form. Please read carefully.” If a named insured signs the form, it is conclusively presumed that there was an informed, knowing rejection or election of lower limits on behalf of all insureds. The insurer must notify the named insured at least annually of the options, with the notice attached to the premium notice and a way to request coverage.

Three further rules bear on what you carry. The statute says UM equals bodily injury liability limits unless lower limits are requested or the coverage is rejected. A renewal, replacement or changed policy with the same bodily injury limits need not repeat the offer when the insured earlier rejected or chose lower limits, unless the insured requests more in writing. And for a vehicle leased for a year or longer where the lessor provides liability coverage under the lease, the lessee alone has the privilege to reject UM or select lower limits. The statute’s definition in subsection (3) deems an insured vehicle uninsured when its insurer is insolvent, when its liability limits are lower than the total damages, or when it excludes liability coverage to a nonfamily member whose operation of the vehicle injures the named insured or a resident relative.

Two rules decide how a UM or underinsured claim runs once you make it. The first is a notice duty on the injured person. If you agree to settle with the at-fault driver’s liability insurer for an amount that would not fully satisfy your claim, creating an underinsured motorist claim, section 627.727(6) requires written notice of the proposed settlement, by certified or registered mail, to every underinsured motorist insurer that provides coverage. That insurer has 30 days to consider authorizing the settlement or keeping its subrogation rights. If it authorizes or does not respond in 30 days, you may sign a full release and finalize the settlement without prejudice to the underinsured claim. If it refuses permission to preserve subrogation, it must pay you the amount of the liability insurer’s written offer within those 30 days and later pursue the at-fault driver for it. Signing a release before that notice step can put an underinsured claim at risk, which is why the statute is worth reading before you sign anything the other driver’s insurer sends.

The second rule is a limit on what the UM insurer owes. Under subsection (7), its liability does not include damages for pain, suffering, mental anguish and inconvenience unless the injury meets one of the four thresholds in section 627.737(2); the no-fault threshold that restricts a lawsuit against the other driver also restricts the UM claim. And subsection (8) lets insurers offer UM policies that do not stack: limits on two or more vehicles are not added together, the coverage for an occupied vehicle is that vehicle’s coverage, and a pedestrian can select one limit from the policies under which they are insured. The insurer must disclose the limitation on a form approved by the office, and it is offered as an alternative to coverage without the limitation. Whether you accepted a non-stacking version is on the form you signed, and it is the second thing to look for after the rejection form.

A reading you can use on your own policy: look for a signed rejection form in the paperwork from when you bought it. If you cannot find one, ask the insurer for its copy. If you signed it years ago and your bodily injury limits have risen since, ask whether the rejection still applies; the statute’s renewal language is about same-limit policies, not increased ones. The uninsured and underinsured motorist guide sizes the limit.

Lapse, suspension and the fee schedule

Florida’s enforcement runs through the insurer’s reports. Under 324.0221(1), an insurer that issued a policy with PIP or property damage liability must report a cancellation or nonrenewal to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles within 10 days of the processing or effective date, and must report a new policy to a named insured not previously insured by it during the calendar year within 10 days. The insurer must also tell the named insured in writing that cancellation or nonrenewal will be reported, that failure to maintain PIP and property damage liability may cost registration and driving privileges, and what the reinstatement fees are.

The department then suspends the registration and driver license of an owner or registrant whose records show no required security, or when the insurer notifies it of a cancellation or termination (324.0221(2)). Reinstatement under subsection (3) costs a nonrefundable $150 for the first reinstatement, $250 for the second and $500 for each subsequent one during the three years following the first; if no second reinstatement occurs within three years, the next is $150 again. A person reinstating must also secure coverage as described in sections 324.021(8), 324.023 and 627.7275(2) and present proof on the department’s form, maintained for two years.

Two more rules matter to someone restarting after a suspension. Section 627.7275(2)(a) obliges insurers to make coverage available, subject to their usual underwriting restrictions, to an applicant seeking it to reinstate driving privileges revoked or suspended for failure to maintain required security. Such policies must be issued for at least six months, the insurer must notify the department that the policy is in force, and the coverages may not be reduced below the required minimums during the policy period (627.7275(2)(b)). The insurer may cancel such a policy if the named insured or another household operator has a license suspended or revoked during the term (627.7275(2)(d)). Section 316.646(3) adds that a driver cited for lacking proof of security who cannot show security was in effect by the court date faces a suspension order on conviction.

The lapse guide covers the broader picture, including prices after a gap: what a lapse in car insurance sets in motion. For the high-risk filing that follows a DUI, see the FR-44 guide.

Cancellation and nonrenewal: the notice and the three grounds

Section 627.728 governs private passenger policies, and it narrows what an insurer can do. Subsection (2) says no notice of cancellation is effective unless it is based on one or more of three grounds: nonpayment of premium, material misrepresentation or fraud, or a suspension or revocation of the license or registration of the named insured or a household operator during the policy period or the 180 days before its effective date. The last sentence of that list, at the end of paragraph (c), reads: “This subsection shall not apply to any policy which has been in effect less than 60 days at the time notice of cancellation is mailed or delivered by the insurer unless it is a renewal policy.” The sentence says “this subsection”, and the subsection is (2), the whole list of permitted grounds, not only the license ground it follows. Read literally, a new policy that is under 60 days old when the notice is mailed is outside the grounds restriction, which would let an insurer cancel it for a reason that is not on the list. We could not confirm how Florida courts or the Office of Insurance Regulation apply the sentence, so treat the first 60 days of a new Florida policy as a period in which the three-ground protection may not apply, and ask the insurer in writing which grounds it relies on.

The notice periods are specific. Cancellation requires notice mailed or delivered to the first-named insured and the agent at least 45 days before the effective date, with the reasons attached; for nonpayment of premium the period is at least 10 days. Nonrenewal requires at least 45 days’ advance notice with reasons, and without a written explanation the policy stays in force. If the insured buys another liability policy covering the same car, the old policy terminates on that policy’s effective date despite a defective nonrenewal notice. An insurer may not refuse to renew for reasons based entirely on sex, occupation, marital status, residence, military service or age, or on the principal place of garaging, or on any combination of those, and may never do so on race, color, creed or national origin or for any arbitrary or capricious reason.

Pair this with the refund rules in the cancel-anytime guide and the difference between the two events in cancellation versus nonrenewal.

Florida rules that live in other guides

Several Florida statutes are better read next to the situation they govern, and we cover them there rather than repeat them. The windshield deductible waiver in section 627.7288 is in the windshield guide. The rule that the lessor’s liability and PIP coverage is primary on a rental unless the contract says otherwise, section 627.7263, is in the rental car guide. The payment clock for a settled claim, section 627.4265, is in the claim timeline guide, the installment fee ceiling in 627.901 is in the monthly versus paid-in-full guide, and the refund and cancellation timing in section 627.7283 is in the cancel guide.

If you want the premium side, the Florida rate page carries the published NAIC averages for the state, which are a different kind of number from a rule and say nothing about any one driver.

Questions readers ask

If you cannot find a signed uninsured motorist rejection form for your own policy, size the coverage you would want in the uninsured and underinsured motorist guide.