If another driver hurts you in a Florida crash and they have no insurance, carry too little of it, or drive off before you get a plate number, uninsured motorist (UM) coverage is often the only thing between you and a stack of unpaid medical bills. Florida makes this coverage easy to skip, and plenty of drivers skip it without understanding what they gave up. Here's how the rules actually work in this state, with the statute sections you can check for yourself.
Is uninsured motorist coverage required in Florida?
No. You don't have to carry it. But your insurer can't quietly leave it off your policy either. Under Florida's uninsured motorist law, any auto policy that includes bodily injury liability coverage must include UM coverage at limits equal to your bodily injury liability limits, unless you reject it or choose lower limits in writing.12 Because the offer is tied to your liability limits, the more bodily injury coverage you buy, the more UM protection you're offered.
That written rejection is not a checkbox in the fine print. Florida requires a specific form approved by the Office of Insurance Regulation, with a heading in 12-point bold type that begins, "You are electing not to purchase certain valuable coverage which protects you and your family." Once a named insured signs it, the law treats that signature as a conclusive presumption that everyone on the policy knowingly rejected the coverage.1 Your insurer also has to remind you of your UM options at least once a year, attached to your premium notice.1
If you don't remember ever seeing that form, pull your declarations page. You might already carry UM coverage you forgot about, or you might have signed it away years ago.
Why so many Florida drivers have nothing to fall back on
Here's the catch that surprises people. Florida is a no-fault state, and the only coverages you must carry to register a car are $10,000 in Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and $10,000 in Property Damage Liability.34 Bodily injury liability coverage is not mandatory for ordinary private passenger vehicles.3
UM coverage only attaches to a policy that already carries bodily injury liability.1 Put those two facts together and the gap is obvious. A driver who buys only the state-required minimum has no bodily injury liability, which means no UM either, unless they deliberately added it. When that minimally insured driver hits you, your own PIP pays 80% of your medical bills and 60% of your lost wages up to the $10,000 cap, and it pays nothing at all for pain and suffering.5 Everything above the cap, plus every dollar of non-economic harm, falls on you unless you carry UM coverage.
What UM and UIM cover here
Florida folds uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage into a single coverage. The same policy responds whether the at-fault driver had no insurance, carried too little, had an insurer that became insolvent, or drove a vehicle their policy excluded.6 It also answers for hit-and-run crashes where the other driver is never identified.
The coverage pays for your bodily injury: medical costs beyond PIP, lost income beyond PIP, and the pain and suffering that no-fault benefits never touch. When the at-fault driver is underinsured, UM fills the difference between their bodily injury limits and your actual damages. Say the driver who hit you carried the $10,000 in bodily injury coverage that many Floridians never buy in the first place, and your injuries come to $75,000. Their insurer pays its $10,000, and your underinsured motorist coverage covers the $65,000 gap, up to your limits. Without UM, that $65,000 is yours to absorb.
Florida also blocks a move insurers once used: your UM benefits cannot be reduced by a setoff against the at-fault driver's liability coverage.1 You collect the other driver's liability limits, and your UM pays on top of that, up to your own limits.
One thing UM does not do here is repair your car. It's bodily injury coverage. Damage to the vehicle itself, including its lost resale value, is a separate property claim (see diminished value in Florida).
Stacked vs. non-stacked coverage
If you insure more than one vehicle, the amount of UM coverage available can depend on which version you bought. Standard "stacked" coverage lets you combine the UM limits across your vehicles for a single accident. Florida also lets insurers sell cheaper "non-stacked" coverage, where the limits on two or more vehicles cannot be added together and you generally get only the limit on the vehicle you occupied.7 Non-stacked coverage takes its own separate written election, apart from the UM rejection form. If you own a couple of cars, this choice can change how much protection you actually have.
Tell your UM insurer before you settle
This is the rule that quietly kills otherwise valid claims. If you want to settle with the at-fault driver's liability insurer for their policy limits, and that settlement won't fully cover your injuries, Florida law requires you to send written notice of the proposed settlement to your underinsured motorist insurer by certified or registered mail.8
Your UM insurer then has 30 days. It can approve the settlement, or it can advance you an amount equal to the settlement offer to keep its own right to pursue the at-fault driver (subrogation).8 If you sign a release and take the liability money without giving that notice, you can destroy your insurer's subrogation rights and wipe out your own underinsured motorist claim in the process. Get the release language and the notice right before you cash any check.
How long you have to file
The deadline for a UM claim is not the two-year window you may have heard about for car-accident lawsuits. A claim against your own UM insurer is a breach-of-contract claim, and Florida gives you five years to bring an action founded on a written contract.9 The two-year negligence deadline set by the 2023 tort reform law governs your suit against the at-fault driver, not your contract claim against your insurer.10
The Florida Supreme Court has held that the five-year UM clock starts on the date of the crash, not the day your insurer denies the claim (Woodall v. Travelers Indem. Co., 699 So. 2d 1361 (Fla. 1997)). Five years sounds generous until an insurer spends two of them negotiating, so don't treat it as spare time.
Two steps protect the claim no matter how it plays out. Get the official crash report, which documents an uninsured or unidentified driver (see Florida crash reports). And because UM disputes turn on policy wording, setoffs, and the settlement-notice rule above, it helps to talk to an attorney before you sign a release or accept a check.
This is general information about Florida law, not legal advice.
Sources
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Fla. Stat. § 627.727(1) (uninsured motorist coverage; written rejection, approved form, conclusive presumption, annual notice, no setoff). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/627.727
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Fla. Stat. § 627.727(2) (UM limits not less than the bodily injury liability limits purchased). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/627.727
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Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Florida Insurance Requirements ($10,000 PIP and $10,000 Property Damage Liability; no bodily injury liability required for private passenger vehicles). https://www.flhsmv.gov/insurance/
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Fla. Stat. § 324.022 (property damage liability security requirement). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/324.022
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Fla. Stat. § 627.736 (Florida Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law; PIP pays 80% of medical bills and 60% of lost wages). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/627.736
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Fla. Stat. § 627.727(3) (definition of an uninsured/underinsured motor vehicle: insolvency, insufficient limits, excluded coverage). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/627.727
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Fla. Stat. § 627.727(8) (non-stacked, reduced-rate coverage). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/627.727
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Fla. Stat. § 627.727(6) (notice of proposed settlement by certified or registered mail; 30-day subrogation window). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/627.727
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Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b) (five-year limit on an action founded on a written contract). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/95.11
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Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a) (two-year limit on negligence actions, under the 2023 tort reform law). https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/95.11