Boat insurance, Florida: cost, the law and your hurricane plan

Boaters in Florida are not made to hold liability insurance, based on the Coast Guard's survey of state boating laws. Liability cover pays when you hurt someone else or damage their property. Certain marinas insist on it, and if you borrowed money for the boat, the lender can insist on cover for the boat itself, as Progressive explains.

You and your boat still have other rules to follow:

• Registration and title: Any boat with a motor on Florida public waters has to be titled and registered. When a boat needs a title, that happens at the same time as registration, handled by the state's highway safety and motor vehicles agency.
• What registration costs: For a boat measuring 16 feet up to under 26 feet, the annual fee comes to $28.75.
• Education card: If your birthday falls on or after January 1, 1988, you need a Boating Safety Education ID Card before you can operate a boat.
• Carrying the card: Running a motorboat of 10 horsepower or more means carrying that card plus a photo ID, as the FWC explains.
• Drinking and boating: A blood alcohol level of 0.08 is where boating under the influence begins. A first conviction carries a penalty of $500 to $1,000 plus as much as six months in jail, under Florida law.

Florida's waterways see heavy traffic. In 2024 the state counted 1,171,432 registered boats. That same year brought 632 boating accidents, 75 deaths, 370 injuries, and property damage of $23,173,353, in figures from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Florida sits in Progressive's high-cost group of states, so cover here tends to cost more than it does in many other states. These yearly prices are our own estimates for a boat kept in Florida, not quotes.

On the home page, our three-step price range works out a price range for your boat, and you can read how the method works. Ring us with your boat, what it is worth, and where it stays, and we will go through the numbers with you.

What kind of boat you own matters most. Take a fishing boat worth $40,000 and a sailboat worth $45,000: nearly the same value, but our sailboat estimate can come out close to double. Before you grab the cheapest price, look at what your marina and lender ask for. If a policy skips cover they require, it will not satisfy their terms.

For you, the best policy meets the terms your marina and lender set and matches how you would cope with a hurricane. People often miss the storm deductible until they have to claim. One call to us lets you compare a policy against what your marina contract demands.

In our estimates, a jet ski is the least costly boat type to cover, running $160 to $700 a year for one valued at $14,000. There are age rules as well. Florida says a person must be at least 14 to drive a jet ski, and 18 or older to hire one.

The priciest boats to insure are cruisers and yachts, and our estimate comes to $1,600 to $3,210 per year for one valued at $150,000. Buying one costs plenty as well. Florida caps sales tax on a boat at $18,000 per sale, with a $60,000 cap per repair. Ring us before you commit to a bigger boat, so your cover is in place the day you take it.

The deductible is the share of a claim you pay out of your own pocket before the insurer covers the balance. Florida coastal policies frequently carry a separate named-storm deductible. That is an extra deductible that kicks in only when damage comes from a hurricane or another named storm. Plenty of insurers want to know how you intend to protect the boat if a storm approaches, which is why a written plan is useful.

Under Florida law, marinas cannot adopt rules that make you take your boat out once a hurricane watch or warning has been issued. Our hurricane plan worksheet helps you lay out your plan ahead of the season.