Florida Car Drivers No Longer Required To Have Insurance

We can’t believe it, but due to the Florida Legislature’s inactions, the requirement that Florida drivers have car insurance, to pay their medical bills and to protect others involved in car accidents, will expire on September 30, 2007. On that date, the so called, Florida “No Fault” law is going to expire, as the legislature has not re-enacted it, nor have they passed a replacement law.

For more than the past 20 years, all car owners and drivers in Florida were required to have a minimum of $10,000.00 of insurance coverage for personal injury protection (PIP) and property damage. But now, unless the Florida Legislature has another special session to address the issue of car insurance, Florida drivers will not have any such requirement.

What does this mean to you? First of all, unless you have health insurance, it will be more difficult to find a doctor who is willing to treat your injuries following a car accident, as the person who caused the accident will not be required to pay anything until your case is settled. This means, doctors may not want to treat car accident victims because they will have to wait an extended period of time before they are paid.

Secondly, and of greater concern to all Floridians, is the loss of revenue that all trauma hospitals will suffer due to the lack of payments from automobile insurance companies.

We can only hope that the Florida Legislature does something to correct this impending crisis, otherwise, we suggest all Florida drivers purchase as much uninsured motorist coverage as they can.