Florida Underinsured / Uninsured Motorist Coverage Defined

UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024

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UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024Fact Checked

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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Mary Martin

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Mary Martin has been a legal writer and editor for over 20 years, responsible for ensuring that content is straightforward, correct, and helpful for the consumer. In addition, she worked on writing monthly newsletter columns for media, lawyers, and consumers. Ms. Martin also has experience with internal staff and HR operations. Mary was employed for almost 30 years by the nationwide legal publi...

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UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024Fact Checked

Underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage protects drivers when the other driver either doesn’t have enough auto insurance or none at all. According to Brian LaBovick, of LaBovick & LaBovick, an attorney in South Florida who specializes in auto accident cases, these are important coverages to have.

He explained, “Underinsured motorist coverage or uninsured motorist coverage (UM) is the flipside to bodily injury (BI) insurance. In other states, those two insurances are fairly different. They cover things differently, but in Florida, it’s pretty simple. We’ve simplified it and whether the person who hit you in your car is uninsured or simply underinsured (doesn’t have enough insurance), it won’t matter.”

“You can buy bodily injury insurance which will cover you if you hurt somebody else, but what happens to you if the person who hits you doesn’t have any bodily injury insurance and is fairly poor and can’t pay a judgment if (God forbid) they hurt you badly? If you need an operation, say a neck operation, and you don’t have health insurance and it’s going to cost $100,000, who’s going to pay for that?”

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UM is good to have – especially in Florida

LaBovick thinks that UM insurance is especially good to have in Florida as the state does not require motorists to carry bodily injury coverage. He continued, “You can have insurance that will cover you in case the person who hits you does not have that insurance and you can have the amount of it up to the amount that you buy bodily injury insurance. So, the flip side of bodily injury insurance is called uninsured or underinsured motorist insurance, commonly referred to as UM.”

“UM is a great insurance to have, especially in Florida as the person who hits you has no mandated need to have BI insurance, so they’re not going to be covering you. Even if you have BI, if you haven’t bought UM, you won’t be covered in any way, shape or form.”

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Jeffrey Johnson

Insurance Lawyer

Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Insurance Lawyer

Mary Martin

Published Legal Expert

Mary Martin has been a legal writer and editor for over 20 years, responsible for ensuring that content is straightforward, correct, and helpful for the consumer. In addition, she worked on writing monthly newsletter columns for media, lawyers, and consumers. Ms. Martin also has experience with internal staff and HR operations. Mary was employed for almost 30 years by the nationwide legal publi...

Published Legal Expert

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

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