Car insurance in Fort Lauderdale, FL, for bridges, I-95 and a city that flooded in a day.

Fort Lauderdale drives across bridges

Fort Lauderdale is the Broward county seat, on the New River between the Atlantic and the inland suburbs. The 2020–2024 Census estimates put the population at about 185,600. About 27% of residents were born outside the United States. Census table C16001 counts Russian, Polish and other Slavic languages as one line: about 1,900 residents age 5 and older, roughly 1.1% of that age group. The line is not a count of Russian alone. About 12,700 housing units, roughly one in eight, were vacant for seasonal or occasional use, so a meaningful share of cars are here for part of the year and somewhere else the rest.

I-95 is the north–south freeway, with express lanes whose toll moves with traffic. I-595 runs west from the port and the airport toward the western suburbs. US-1 (Federal Highway) carries the surface traffic through the city, and A1A runs the beach. Sunrise Boulevard and Broward Boulevard are the big east–west streets. Andrews Avenue and Las Olas Boulevard feed downtown. The New River crossings, including the Las Olas bridge and the SE 17th Street causeway toward Port Everglades, open for boats and stack cars on both sides. If one bridge is up, the parallel route is not a side street. It is the next bridge.

The average one-way commute is about 26 minutes. About 8% of workers who leave home for work travel 60 minutes or more, many of them south into Miami-Dade or north toward Palm Beach. The car is garaged in a downtown tower, on a canal street in Las Olas Isles or Rio Vista, or in a house west of I-95. Those are different flood and theft exposures, and the policy should name the real address.

Florida’s minimum, on a bridge approach

Every registered car needs $10,000 of Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and $10,000 of Property Damage Liability (PDL), kept in force with no lapse. PIP is no-fault coverage for your own injuries: 80% of reasonable medical bills and 60% of lost income. It generally also covers you and relatives who live with you if a car hits you while you are walking or cycling. Las Olas, the beach and the downtown sidewalks are full of people on foot. Initial treatment has to start within 14 days, and benefits above $2,500 generally require a physician to find an emergency medical condition. Bills to repeal PIP died in committee in March 2026, so the system is unchanged for now.

What the law does not require of most drivers is bodily injury liability. The Insurance Research Council estimated that about 20.6% of Florida drivers were uninsured in 2023, about one in five. When that driver hurts you, uninsured motorist coverage (UM) is what responds above PIP. Insurers must offer UM at your BI limits. You can lower it or reject it only in writing. Without BI you generally cannot buy UM. If the household has two or more cars, ask whether UM is stacked. Since March 24, 2023, Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule has barred recovery from the other driver when you are found more than 50% at fault for your own injuries, and most negligence lawsuits now have a two-year deadline instead of four.

April 12, 2023: cars in the water

This was not a hurricane. On April 12 and 13, 2023, a nearly stationary front dumped extreme rain on southern and central Broward. NOAA’s storm database records 15 to 25 inches between noon and midnight across Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Dania Beach and Wilton Manors. The highest measured total was 25.91 inches at a WeatherSTEM gauge at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, with about 20 inches between 4 and 10 p.m. The airport closed for nearly 40 hours. NOAA records vehicle insurance claims across the area in the thousands, and nearly a thousand calls to tow companies for cars left in the water. High water marks inside homes in Edgewood and Melrose Park were over 3 feet. A car flooded by that rain is a comprehensive claim, and only if comprehensive was already on the policy. Collision does not pay for rising water. Insurers can stop accepting coverage changes once a storm is threatening. The same rule applies before a hurricane.

Broward is in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone under Florida Building Code section 1620. That is a building rule, not an auto-policy rule, but it describes the wind the city has already seen. The National Hurricane Center’s report on Wilma, in October 2005, found that parts of Broward likely had Category 2 conditions, with gusts near 100 knots at street level and stronger wind on the upper floors of high-rises. Broken glass from those towers ended up on downtown streets. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, the National Weather Service reported that most of coastal and metro Broward saw gusts in the Category 1 to Category 2 range, about 80 to 100 mph, while sustained winds were generally lower. Debris on a parked car is a comprehensive claim. After a crash with injuries, a death, or apparent damage of at least $2,000, Florida requires a report to the police, the sheriff or the Florida Highway Patrol. Photograph the cars and the other driver’s documents, and get medical care inside 14 days so PIP is not lost.

A foreign license and a Florida registration

Visitors may drive with a valid license from the country where they live. Florida’s driver handbook describes the non-resident exception as an International Driving Permit carried with that license. The permit is a translation, not a license by itself. You are treated as a Florida resident, and you then have 30 days to get a Florida license, if you take a job here, put a child in public school, register to vote, file for a homestead exemption, or live here more than six months in a row. To title and register a car you also need a policy from an agent licensed in Florida, generally within 10 days of becoming a resident. Whether a company will accept a foreign license is an underwriting question. Send the license and the declarations page. We will tell you what we can place. We do not promise a policy.

Why Fort Lauderdale clients call Florida City

M&K Agency is a family-owned agency with a team of 12 and more than 5,000 clients across Florida. Send us your policy and we’ll check your coverage. A licensed agent explains the gaps in plain language, in English, Spanish or Russian, and if you have a claim you have a person who already knows the file.

More for this area

• Home and condo insurance in Fort Lauderdale
• Car insurance in Broward County
• Guide: hit by a driver with no insurance? (uninsured motorist coverage)
• Car accident in Miami-Dade: what to do next

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