Short answer
If you are a relative who lives in the policyholder’s household, usually yes. Under Florida law the named insured and resident relatives are Class I insureds, covered by the policy’s UM coverage wherever they are injured by an uninsured or underinsured driver, in any car or on foot. If the coverage is stacked, you can also combine that policy’s limits with other UM policies in the household. A relative who lives elsewhere, or a friend, is covered only while occupying the insured vehicle.
Answered by Kweku Darfoor, Esq., founder of The Injury Advocates, a Plantation-based personal injury law firm serving Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, and South Florida. General information, not legal advice about your situation.
The Florida Supreme Court drew the line in Mullis v. State Farm, 252 So. 2d 229 (Fla. 1971). Class I insureds are the named insured and relatives residing in the same household. Their UM coverage follows them: in the insured car, in someone else’s car, in a rideshare, on a motorcycle in some policies, on a bicycle, or on foot. Class II insureds are everyone else, chiefly passengers and permissive drivers who are not relatives; they are covered only while occupying the insured vehicle, and they cannot stack.
Two words decide most disputes: relative and resident. A spouse, child, parent, sibling, or in-law living in the home qualifies. An adult child who moved out, a cousin visiting for the month, or a fiancé sharing the home may not. Policies define the terms, and insurers litigate them, so we gather the facts about the household early: leases, driver’s licenses, mail, where belongings are kept, and how long the arrangement has lasted.
When UM coverage is stacked, a Class I insured can combine the UM limits of every vehicle on the policy and, in most cases, the stacked UM coverage of other policies in the household. An adult son living at home who is injured as a pedestrian may have his own policy’s UM plus his parents’ stacked UM. If any of the policies is non-stacked, that policy contributes its single limit, generally as excess when the insured was outside an owned vehicle. Stacked vs. non-stacked →
Every UM case begins with a household inventory: every person in the home, every vehicle, every policy, every umbrella. We request declarations pages and the UM election forms for each, map the Class I and Class II relationships, and present the carriers with the coverage analysis in writing. Finding one additional stacked policy frequently doubles the money available for a catastrophic injury.
Related: Florida uninsured motorist lawyer · how UM coverage works · the driver who hit me has no insurance
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Often yes. Courts look at whether the student’s permanent home is still the parents’ household: where they return on breaks, where their belongings and mailing address are, and whether the absence is temporary. Each policy defines the term, so we read the definition and the facts together.
Generally no. A roommate is not a relative, so you are a Class II insured under the roommate’s policy, covered only while occupying the roommate’s insured vehicle.
If you live with your parents, their stacked UM coverage can apply to you as a resident relative in addition to your own, subject to the policy’s definitions and exclusions, such as an exclusion for a vehicle you own that is not insured under their policy. This is exactly the situation where the stacked versus non-stacked election decides the outcome.
