Compared to most other states, Florida actually requires very little from its residents when it comes to the automobile insurance they are required to purchase if they wish to drive a vehicle on a public roadway in Florida.
If you have a good driving record you can legally drive your automobile in Florida if you purchase just $10,000 of Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage and another $10,000 in Property Damage Liability (PDL) coverage. If your driving record includes a crash or if you have gotten speeding or other tickets the state is allowed to force you to also buy Bodily Injury Liability (BIL) insurance before you can legally drive.
What does this minimum insurance cover? Not much, really.
Personal Injury Protection – PIP coverage – covers medical expenses for anyone in your vehicle if you are in a crash regardless of whose fault the accident is. If you've been to a doctor or spent even one night in a hospital or made even one visit to the ER in the past year then you know that $10,000 in insurance coverage will barely cover the cost of a scratch to someone's upper arm, let alone anything even remotely serious.
Property Damage Liability (PDL) insurance covers the repair or replacement of the other person's car and certain other property due to a crash, regardless of whose fault the accident is.
Again, $10,000 will barely cover the replacement of a bumper on many of today's high-priced cars.
Bodily Injury Liability (BIL) insurance covers the medical expenses of anyone in the other car if you are in an accident. This insurance also pays for certain legal expenses if you are sued following an accident. Considering today's medical costs you may wish to consider carrying as much BIL insurance as you can afford, especially if you have a home or other assets which you could lose in the event of a lawsuit.
If you want your automobile to be repaired or replaced in the event of an accident you need to purchase two additional insurance policies – a comprehensive policy as well as a collision policy.
As the name implies, collision insurance protects your vehicle in the event of a collision with another moving vehicle or with a stationary object, such as a tree or a light post or a guardrail. If your vehicle's engine is running and your vehicle is moving when an accident occurs, then your collision policy will cover the cost to repair your automobile up to the limits of the policy or up to the Kelly Blue Book value of your automobile.
Comprehensive insurance covers repair or replacement of your vehicle if it is damaged by an "Act of God" – such as a tree branch crashing down on it during a storm – or if it is damaged by vandalism. Your comprehensive insurance also covers you if you hit a deer or other animal which causes damage to your vehicle.
So in Florida what you want to look for in a full coverage automobile insurance quote is:
• Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance
• Property Damage Liability (PDL) insurance
• Bodily Injury Liability (BIL) insurance
• Collision Insurance
• Comprehensive Insurance
Now you know exactly what to look for in a full coverage automobile insurance quote in Florida. The amount of each type of insurance that you choose to carry should be based on your personal assessment of the risks that you face each day, the cost of the insurance and the assets which you wish to protect.
Getting the best deal on full coverage automobile insurance in Florida is a matter of determining what you want in a policy and then comparing the price for that policy among all of the insurance companies in Florida. The best way to do that is through the multitude of automobile insurance comparison websites on the internet.
Just remember that since no one comparison website makes comparisons between all of the automobile insurance companies operating in Florida you really need to spend the extra time to make your comparisons on at least 3 different websites.
Once you've done that then basically all that's left is to choose the best price that you find. Happy hunting!
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