Trying to understand Florida auto insurance

[artgerst]

We left Virginia for Florida and need to transfer over our insurance policies.

Besides the initial shock of the cost differences (with Florida being 8x the cost of Virginia) I'm trying to understand some of the details and would appreciate help/thoughts from other Florida residents.

With respect to auto insurance, we had in Virginia,
- 250k/500k liability
- 250k/500k uninsured motorist liability.
- something like $5000 medical
- $1000 deductibles

In Florida it sounds like uninsured motorist is a completely different beast. For 2 "safe/good" drivers in their late 50s with one car in Florida should we be sticking with the above levels? Also is there anything else we should make sure we have?

As an aside we also have an umbrella policy we need to move over to Florida which is also 5x the cost.

[MGBMartin]

Uninsured Motorist coverage is not required in Florida.
Not sure what you mean by it being different.
It covers things like medical bills, lost wages etc if you are injured by someone without insurance.
Damage to your vehicle would be covered by collision if you had it.
Some folks think they don’t need uninsured coverage if they are retired and have good health insurance. I’m not saying that’s good or bad.
From what I’ve heard about 1 in 4 drivers don’t have insurance in Florida, don’t know how accurate that is.

The way I look at…
In Florida 1/3 are too young to be driving, 1/3 rd are too old to be driving and 1/3rd are stuck in between the two.

And, yes, Florida is expensive when it comes to auto insurance.

[artgerst]

The way I look at…
In Florida 1/3 are too young to be driving, 1/3 rd are too old to be driving and 1/3rd are stuck in between the two.

Love that quote.

Thank you. I guess I heard it was different because it wasn't required and also the fact that there is a high likelihood of getting hit by someone without insurance.

[Chardo]

The way I look at…
In Florida 1/3 are too young to be driving, 1/3 rd are too old to be driving and 1/3rd are stuck in between the two.

Love that quote.

Thank you. I guess I heard it was different because it wasn't required and also the fact that there is a high likelihood of getting hit by someone without insurance.

Stuck in between the two. With airbags deployed on both sides.

[smitcat]

We left Virginia for Florida and need to transfer over our insurance policies.

Besides the initial shock of the cost differences (with Florida being 8x the cost of Virginia) I'm trying to understand some of the details and would appreciate help/thoughts from other Florida residents.

With respect to auto insurance, we had in Virginia,
- 250k/500k liability
- 250k/500k uninsured motorist liability.
- something like $5000 medical
- $1000 deductibles

In Florida it sounds like uninsured motorist is a completely different beast. For 2 "safe/good" drivers in their late 50s with one car in Florida should we be sticking with the above levels? Also is there anything else we should make sure we have?

As an aside we also have an umbrella policy we need to move over to Florida which is also 5x the cost.

Like all states Florida auto insurance varies greatly by zip code where you live. In Florida the exact same car insurance will vary by over 300% from the lowest cost to the highest cost zip codes.
FWIW - our car insurance did not change appreciably when we transferred a couple of cars from NY to Florida.

Safe driver courses, bundled insurance, & autopay all reduce rates.

[an_asker]

[...]
And, yes, Florida is expensive when it comes to auto insurance.

Fixed that for you!

[MGBMartin]

[...]
And, yes, Florida is expensive when it comes to auto insurance.

Fixed that for you!

Yep, homeowners is getting beyond expensive when you can even find it.

[Dave bricoleur]

I also moved from VA to FL.

Uninsured Motorist insurance will cover you while riding your bicycle if someone has inadequate insurance or hit & run.
(UM doesn't help you with a dog attack unless the dog was driving a car)

I ride 500+/miles per month and consider UM insurance just as important as bright lights and a helmet.

-dave

[rossington]

......with Florida being 8x the cost of Virginia

.......As an aside we also have an umbrella policy we need to move over to Florida which is also 5x the cost.

8x?? 5x??
Please post your VA insurance carrier and numbers vs. the FL carrier names and their numbers.

[Chardo]

......with Florida being 8x the cost of Virginia

.......As an aside we also have an umbrella policy we need to move over to Florida which is also 5x the cost.

8x?? 5x??
Please post your VA insurance carrier and numbers vs. the FL carrier names and their numbers.

And location within VA and FL

[Golf maniac]

I am in Florida, I would get the uninsured and underinsured option but I would not stack it at 250/500. I would just leave it at 250/250. Florida insurance is a mess due to the lawsuits and uninsured motorists. Rates have gone crazy over past few years. Shop around because rates can vary greatly by company.

[Steady59]

In addition to high insurance, Florida boasts:

No safety inspection
No emissions check
No noise ordinance
No minimum on the road hours for new drivers (last I checked)

I can drive with the best of them, but the drivers here are among the worst I've experienced.

[runninginvestor]

I am in Florida, I would get the uninsured and underinsured option but I would not stack it at 250/500. I would just leave it at 250/250. Florida insurance is a mess due to the lawsuits and uninsured motorists. Rates have gone crazy over past few years. Shop around because rates can vary greatly by company.

Thatc limit change will likely depend on what their umbrella carrier allows.

[exodusNH]

I am in Florida, I would get the uninsured and underinsured option but I would not stack it at 250/500. I would just leave it at 250/250. Florida insurance is a mess due to the lawsuits and uninsured motorists. Rates have gone crazy over past few years. Shop around because rates can vary greatly by company.

Two people in a car accident with an under/uninsured driver will quickly burn through $250k.

[artgerst]

......with Florida being 8x the cost of Virginia

.......As an aside we also have an umbrella policy we need to move over to Florida which is also 5x the cost.

8x?? 5x??
Please post your VA insurance carrier and numbers vs. the FL carrier names and their numbers.

Erie Insurance in VA and checked with Geico and State Farm in Florida. $320/year compared to about $1100/6 months. Sorry, that's probably 7x (not 8x). That's the cost for 2 drivers/1 car.

[artgerst]

In addition to high insurance, Florida boasts:

No safety inspection
No emissions check
No noise ordinance
No minimum on the road hours for new drivers (last I checked)

I can drive with the best of them, but the drivers here are among the worst I've experienced.

I can't agree more. I have driven all over the world and I'm the most scared to drive in Florida.

[an_asker]

[...]
I can't agree more. I have driven all over the world and I'm the most scared to drive in Florida.

I am curious where all (around the world) you have driven when you say you are most scared to drive in Florida!!

[PeninsulaPerson]

Hope you find a good local agent - someone who knows what happens to other drivers/insureds - to advise you on making your choices.

Florida is a beautiful state and unique in many ways. Dealing with someone who knows the ropes there can only be an advantage to you!

[artgerst]

Hope you find a good local agent - someone who knows what happens to other drivers/insureds - to advise you on making your choices.

Florida is a beautiful state and unique in many ways. Dealing with someone who knows the ropes there can only be an advantage to you!

Thank you for this. Everyone has been very friendly and the agents have been especially friendly but the response on insurance has just been “yeah, sorry it’s just higher here in Florida”

[PeninsulaPerson]

Maybe an underwriting reason for that ... and maybe not a time to cut corners on insurance?

Not saying that's what you were thinking of doing but it's interesting that it's that much higher!

[an_asker]

Hope you find a good local agent - someone who knows what happens to other drivers/insureds - to advise you on making your choices.

Florida is a beautiful state and unique in many ways. Dealing with someone who knows the ropes there can only be an advantage to you!

Thank you for this. Everyone has been very friendly and the agents have been especially friendly but the response on insurance has just been “yeah, sorry it’s just higher here in Florida”

That is unfortunately true. I look at the prices that folks share here for their auto and home insurances elsewhere in the country and go

I recently asked my insurance agent and he said that it is because of all the rich retiree folks - especially sports folks - who come to Florida to retire and who are usually at the wrong end of insurance suits.

Home insurance is a whole different can of worms. I get the fact that hurricanes cause a lot of property damage in Florida, but I don't get it how insurance rates in the midwest and the west coast are so much lower than Florida, when tornadoes are even less predictable and common occurrences (midwest) and floods and wildfires are similar in frequency on the west coast in the recent past.

[runninginvestor]

That is unfortunately true. I look at the prices that folks share here for their auto and home insurances elsewhere in the country and go

I recently asked my insurance agent and he said that it is because of all the rich retiree folks - especially sports folks - who come to Florida to retire and who are usually at the wrong end of insurance suits.

Home insurance is a whole different can of worms. I get the fact that hurricanes cause a lot of property damage in Florida, but I don't get it how insurance rates in the midwest and the west coast are so much lower than Florida, when tornadoes are even less predictable and common occurrences (midwest) and floods and wildfires are similar in frequency on the west coast in the recent past.

As far as tornadoes in the midwest, my educated guess would be that the places that tornadoes hit have lower property values than hurricanes that hit resorts and beach houses. So likely, generally costlier to replace.

[FrugalConservative]

Hope you find a good local agent - someone who knows what happens to other drivers/insureds - to advise you on making your choices.

Florida is a beautiful state and unique in many ways. Dealing with someone who knows the ropes there can only be an advantage to you!

Thank you for this. Everyone has been very friendly and the agents have been especially friendly but the response on insurance has just been “yeah, sorry it’s just higher here in Florida”

That is unfortunately true. I look at the prices that folks share here for their auto and home insurances elsewhere in the country and go

I recently asked my insurance agent and he said that it is because of all the rich retiree folks - especially sports folks - who come to Florida to retire and who are usually at the wrong end of insurance suits.

Home insurance is a whole different can of worms. I get the fact that hurricanes cause a lot of property damage in Florida, but I don't get it how insurance rates in the midwest and the west coast are so much lower than Florida, when tornadoes are even less predictable and common occurrences (midwest) and floods and wildfires are similar in frequency on the west coast in the recent past.

Significant fraud, it has little to do with hurricanes. From 2019-2021 there were ZERO direct hurricane hits, yet home owner premiums are up nearly 35-50% for most homes.
The biggest fraud area,roof replacement and law suits. That is driving the cost of home owners.

[rooms222]

This has been a good discussion about Florida car insurance. The issue of stacking has been brought up. The other is that bodily injury liability ("BIL") is optional for the other driver (and also many do not have insurance). Thus, you are insuring these risks through your own coverage. I think the legal landscape in Florida also has an impact on rates as discussed above.

Here is some background info on both stacking and BIL
EDITED TO ADD LINK
https://mykramerlawfirm.com/car-auto-ac ... insurance/


The only other question I can think of is what amount should your medical be? Is 5,000 or 10,000 more appropriate to potentially settle injury claims by others quickly and/or pay for any injuries to passengers in your car?

[BernardShakey]

We left Virginia for Florida and need to transfer over our insurance policies.

Besides the initial shock of the cost differences (with Florida being 8x the cost of Virginia) I'm trying to understand some of the details and would appreciate help/thoughts from other Florida residents.

With respect to auto insurance, we had in Virginia,
- 250k/500k liability
- 250k/500k uninsured motorist liability.
- something like $5000 medical
- $1000 deductibles

In Florida it sounds like uninsured motorist is a completely different beast. For 2 "safe/good" drivers in their late 50s with one car in Florida should we be sticking with the above levels? Also is there anything else we should make sure we have?

As an aside we also have an umbrella policy we need to move over to Florida which is also 5x the cost.

Wow, so sorry for the sticker shock you have encountered. I'm familiar with insurance rates in FL as I have family there. It's a nightmare in some zip codes for different types of insurance but particularly auto and homeowners. The high percentage of uninsured motorists is part of the problem.

I would try to find a knowledgeable agent and then also do some shopping around on your own. When it comes to insurance, you really have to put in the legwork to get reputable coverage at a reasonable price.

[talzara]

Home insurance is a whole different can of worms. I get the fact that hurricanes cause a lot of property damage in Florida, but I don't get it how insurance rates in the midwest and the west coast are so much lower than Florida, when tornadoes are even less predictable and common occurrences (midwest) and floods and wildfires are similar in frequency on the west coast in the recent past.

Hurricanes destroy and damage homes over hundreds of square miles. Tornadoes do not. Tornadoes cause total destruction within a very narrow path.

The price of homeowners insurance does not include flood risk. Floods are not covered by homeowners insurance. They are covered by flood insurance.

After every thunderstorm in Florida, roofers knock on the doors of undamaged houses with old roofs and offer to replace the roof for free. Roofers in California do not go around to undamaged houses after every wildfire and offer them a new roof. The insurance companies in California only have to pay for houses that are actually damaged by the wildfire.

[talzara]

Significant fraud, it has little to do with hurricanes. From 2019-2021 there were ZERO direct hurricane hits, yet home owner premiums are up nearly 35-50% for most homes.
The biggest fraud area,roof replacement and law suits. That is driving the cost of home owners.

It has a lot to do with hurricanes, but the roofing fraud is making things much worse.

Louisiana doesn't have Florida levels of roofing fraud, but Louisiana's homeowners insurance market is also in trouble. That's because Louisiana is also having trouble with hurricanes.

Homeowners insurance in Florida would still be expensive without the roofing fraud, but it wouldn't be this bad.

[MGBMartin]

Significant fraud, it has little to do with hurricanes. From 2019-2021 there were ZERO direct hurricane hits, yet home owner premiums are up nearly 35-50% for most homes.
The biggest fraud area,roof replacement and law suits. That is driving the cost of home owners.

It has a lot to do with hurricanes, but the roofing fraud is making things much worse.

Louisiana doesn't have Florida levels of roofing fraud, but Louisiana's homeowners insurance market is also in trouble. That's because Louisiana is also having trouble with hurricanes.

Homeowners insurance in Florida would still be expensive without the roofing fraud, but it wouldn't be this bad.

My insurance agent told me that it doesn’t matter if there have not been any hurricanes in your area or even in Florida because the companies or reinsurers spread the risk over the entire gulf coast.
I don’t know how true that is or not.
I’ve lived a couple of blocks from the gulf coast for almost 30 years and only one hurricane has come close enough to causes hurricane force winds in my area. Had plenty of close calls and evacuated for 2 storms but no damage so far.

[talzara]

My insurance agent told me that it doesn’t matter if there have not been any hurricanes in your area or even in Florida because the companies or reinsurers spread the risk over the entire gulf coast.
I don’t know how true that is or not.

Hurricane strikes do not directly increase premiums, but they indirectly increase premiums.

Most homeowners insurance perils base their rates on claims, just like auto insurance. If an insurance company is seeing more theft claims or more liability claims, it will increase the theft premium or the liability premium. However, the hurricane premium is model-based rather than claims-based. Insurance companies license a hurricane model from a modeling company and use it to calculate their expected hurricane risk.

When there is a hurricane strike, it does not increase rates directly because the claims data is not used to set the hurricane premium. However, the hurricane models used by the insurance industry have been optimistic. The recent hurricane activity is being used to revise the hurricane models to predict greater hurricane activity, which is causing increases in hurricane premiums.

It is not just Florida, and it is not just the Gulf Coast. Coastal houses all the way up to Massachusetts are seeing increases in their hurricane premiums.

[talzara]

Erie Insurance in VA and checked with Geico and State Farm in Florida. $320/year compared to about $1100/6 months. Sorry, that's probably 7x (not 8x). That's the cost for 2 drivers/1 car.

Try Allstate and Progressive. Those four companies have 70% of the auto insurance market in Florida.

Remember that you do not have to bundle your homeowners insurance. Sometimes, you will not even be allowed to bundle because the homeowners insurer will turn you down. Shop the auto + umbrella policy separately from the homeowners policy.

Price is not the only consideration. You can shop the auto policy on price, but you should shop the homeowners policy on price and financial stability. The worst time for an insurance company to go bankrupt is after a hurricane. There are a lot of single-state homeowners insurers in Florida with poor A.M. Best ratings or even Demotech ratings. It's not like Virginia, where it's easy to find a good homeowners insurer, and everyone is accepting new customers.

[smitcat]

Hope you find a good local agent - someone who knows what happens to other drivers/insureds - to advise you on making your choices.

Florida is a beautiful state and unique in many ways. Dealing with someone who knows the ropes there can only be an advantage to you!

Thank you for this. Everyone has been very friendly and the agents have been especially friendly but the response on insurance has just been “yeah, sorry it’s just higher here in Florida”

Florida is a big state.
As posted above car insurance in Florida (and NY) is heavily dependent upon the exact zip code you reside in - in Florida it varies by 300+% dependent just upon zip.
Home insurance in Florida also varies greatly for two reasons ....
1. your exact zip and location (weather)
2. the construction of the home

For #1 generally view the NOAA probability maps for hurricanes to get a feel for the higher cost zips.
For #2 you have a number of items to look at, a few of them are: stick vs concrete construction, ratings for windows and doors, details on roof type and construction. All of these would be detailed in the last "'4 points inspection" and the 'wind mitigation" reports available from the seller/builder.

FWIW...
- similar value home construction in NY and Florida and the insurance costs are similar.
- our immediate next door neighbors home insurance is just about double ours due to construction differences.
- our car insurance in Fl is just about the same as in NY for the same vehicles (Allstate in both locations)

While you really need to look at car insurance costs by exact zip code here is a list that generally describes the cost by state...
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insu ... -by-state/

[Mitchell777]

I read an article a while ago that said FL was #1 in occurrence of sinkholes (PA being #2). It stated the average total repair cost in FL was $90K. I'm not in FL but I had a sinkhole in my neighborhood, front lawn and right up near the house, and it was a major repair.

[jane1]

I feel your pain. My auto insurance in FL has been rising at an alarming rate with each renewal. I am told it is due to FL being favorable for lawsuits. In some areas most billboard ads are from law firms!

[Snowbird501]

Highly reccomend checking out The Hartford through AARP. We live on a barrier island, so rates are high. I checked a dozen companies plus brokers and they were the best deal. We recently had a total loss claim with them and they handled it flawlessly.

We have the following coverages, and The Hartford has annual policies vs 6/mo:

Bodily Injury: $500,000/$500,000
Property Damage: $100,000
Personal Injury Protection: $10,000
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Bodily Injury STACKED: $500,000/$500,000

We choose stacked UM coverage but it’s far more expensive. We also have a $5M umbrella with The Hartford.

[artgerst]

Highly reccomend checking out The Hartford through AARP. We live on a barrier island, so rates are high. I checked a dozen companies plus brokers and they were the best deal. We recently had a total loss claim with them and they handled it flawlessly.

We have the following coverages, and The Hartford has annual policies vs 6/mo:

Bodily Injury: $500,000/$500,000
Property Damage: $100,000
Personal Injury Protection: $10,000
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Bodily Injury STACKED: $500,000/$500,000

We choose stacked UM coverage but it’s far more expensive. We also have a $5M umbrella with The Hartford.

Thanks for the recommendation. They were a bit cheaper on the auto, but they currently "don't provide umbrella insurance while they are transferring their systems". Ugh, nothing is easy.

[beyou]

In addition to high insurance, Florida boasts:

No safety inspection
No emissions check
No noise ordinance
No minimum on the road hours for new drivers (last I checked)

I can drive with the best of them, but the drivers here are among the worst I've experienced.

And you need to drive with “Florida Man” on the road !

[ScubaHogg]

In addition to high insurance, Florida boasts:

No safety inspection
No emissions check
No noise ordinance
No minimum on the road hours for new drivers (last I checked)

I can drive with the best of them, but the drivers here are among the worst I've experienced.

I can't agree more. I have driven all over the world and I'm the most scared to drive in Florida.

You’ve never driven in Memphis then