Don’t Put the Brakes on St. Petersburg Car Insurance

St. Petersburg car insurance may not be liked, but it is needed.

St. Petersburg car insurance is there to protect you against things you can’t predict down the road.

When driving around St. Petersburg, Florida having good car insurance is just as important to your safety as having good brakes. Brakes are there so that you can maintain control of your car and prevent a car accident, and car insurance is there to help you maintain control of your money and prevent financial ruin.

As you can see, one is just as important as the other.

St. Petersburg Car Insurance

Just like with your brakes being required on your vehicle before it is sold to you, you are required to carry St. Petersburg car insurance before you actually hit the road. You are required to have no less than:

• $10,000 personal injury protection (PIP)
• $10,000 property damage liability (PDL)

The PIP is to pay for your injuries, regardless of who was at fault for the accident, and the PDL pays for the other person’s damages that you cause. These coverages are unique to the state of Florida in two ways. One, each state determines what type and how much insurance they will require their drivers to carry within their state borders.

Two, most states only require that you carry car insurance coverage to protect the other person that you may hit. Florida is one of very few states that require you to carry car insurance to protect yourself in the event of an accident.

St. Petersburg Accident Statistics

If you think that you really don’t need St. Petersburg car insurance because your brakes will keep you from getting into and accident, here are some statistics from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Over the last three years, there has been an average of 12,720 car accidents a year in Pinellas County. During this same period there was an average of 102 fatalities a year. In 2012 alone, there were 13,601 car accidents in Pinellas County, which was an increase of 25% from 2011. In 2012, there were 99 fatalities.

For just St. Petersburg, they had 3750 car accidents in 2012.

Broken down, that’s around 35 car accidents a day in Pinellas County in 2012 and 10 a day just in the city or St. Petersburg.

All of these cars had brakes and they still ended up getting into accidents, so I guess St. Petersburg car insurance isn’t too bad of a backup plan after all.