Who Needs Bodily Injury Insurance?
November 8, 2024
Resident and non-resident drivers living in Florida for ninety days or longer are required to purchase minimum amounts of personal injury protection ($10,000) and property damage liability ($10,000). PDL only covers damages to someone else’s property or car and not the policy holder’s vehicle. Generally just called PIP insurance, you cannot buy one without the other.
Regardless of who is at-fault or found liable for the accident, PIP allows the victims to immediately have aid with their injuries and wounds. As a specific type of no-fault auto insurance, the personal injury coverage pays for up to 80% of medical expenses and 60% of lost wages, up to the policy limit, for both you and your passengers who don’t own a vehicle.
In addition to covering you, PIP insurance also covers your children and family members who live with you for injuries sustained while driving your vehicle, riding in your car, or as a pedestrian. In addition to medical bills and lost wages, PIP insurance pays for routine household services during recovery, disability and rehabilitation costs, and $5,000 in death benefits for each fatality.
What is the goal of Florida PIP insurance?
The state of Florida passed no-fault insurance laws in the 1970s to reduce inefficiencies in the insurance claims system. Since no-fault insurance doesn’t require determining who was at-fault for an accident, victims can receive quicker compensation for medical expenses provided they get treatment within 14 days of their accident injuries.
Virtually anything injury-related to the accident is covered by PIP up to the coverage limits, including medical and hospital bills, doctor's visits, dental work, and ambulance rides up to coverage limits. However, unlike many states, the Sunshine State does not require drivers to carry bodily injury insurance coverage. Nonetheless, most agents highly recommend it, as it can protect you financially if you’re held liable for causing harm in a vehicular accident.
Why Buy Bodily Injury Protection?
In Florida, bodily injury liability insurance is only required if you’ve been at fault in previous accidents or have certain traffic violations. Most notably, if you’ve been convicted of DUI, you’ll need to purchase coverage for three years once your license is reinstated. For other drivers, bodily injury coverage pays for severe injuries to others and fatalities caused by your negligence, but not your own injuries. It pays for a broad range of injuries from moderate to serious or severe.
Examples of bodily injuries can include:
- Cuts, abrasions, bruises, burns, or disfigurement
- Physical pain throughout the body following the accident
- Any type of illness that is directly related to the accident
- Impairment of function for a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty
- Other injuries to the body and no matter how temporary
In addition, Florida’s personal injury laws do allow for emotional distress to serve as valid grounds for a civil lawsuit as a bodily injury claim under certain conditions. The state’s Impact Rule requires the injured party to present evidence that their emotional distress was connected to a physical injury or trauma that’s directly related to an accident. Plus, in the courtroom, juries will consider factors like the severity, how long the person has suffered and how it affected their quality of life.
Protecting Your Assets with Bodily Injury Coverage
If you do not carry bodily injury coverage and hurt someone in a car accident, you will be personally responsible to cover their medical bills, pain and suffering, and loss of earnings. For those with substantial assets, bodily injury liability insurance is vital for asset protection. Experts often recommend coverage limits of at least $100,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, though higher limits offer better protection if you have more significant assets.
In Florida, purchasing uninsured motorist (UM) insurance is crucial due to the state's high rate of uninsured drivers. To obtain UM insurance, you must also have bodily injury liability coverage. Uninsured motorist insurance helps cover costs like medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, disability expenses, and wrongful death claims. It also acts as a vital supplement to your PIP benefits. If you don’t have UM and are hit by an uninsured driver, you may only get the required 80% PIP coverage.
According to the Insurance Research Council, about 14 percent of drivers in the United States are uninsured and even more are underinsured. During their study, the largest percentage of increases in the number of uninsured motorist were in Florida, which has an uninsured motorist rate of 26.7%. Even for the insured drivers in the Sunshine State, many only carry the minimum required PIP coverage, which means they may not be able to cover serious injuries.
Driving without PIP auto insurance is illegal in Florida. But, PIP limits are quite low and may not fully protect your assets in the event of an auto accident. Contact an independent agent at Nsurance Nation to find out what discounts our insurers offer and how to get the best deal possible when adding optional coverages like bodily injury liability and uninsured motorist insurance.
