A rock comes off a dump truck on I-95 near Oakland Park Boulevard and puts a star in your windshield. By the time you are back in Sunrise the crack has run six inches across the glass. Your comprehensive deductible is $1,000 and the replacement quote is $780, so you assume you are paying for this one yourself. In Florida you are not. The deductible does not apply to the windshield at all.
Florida is one of a small number of states that waives the comprehensive deductible on windshield damage by statute, and that rule has not been amended since 1997. What did change, in 2023, is everything surrounding the claim: whether you can sign your benefits over to a glass shop, what a shop may offer you in exchange for filing, and what your insurer may say about where the work gets done. Most of the articles claiming Florida repealed its free windshield law are confusing those two things. This guide separates them.
Two conditions have to be true before the deductible is waived. The damage has to be to the front windshield, and the vehicle has to carry comprehensive coverage. A liability-only policy pays nothing toward glass in Florida no matter what the statute says. The state minimum is $10,000 PIP and $10,000 property damage liability, and neither of those includes comprehensive, so a driver carrying only the minimum has no glass coverage at all.
What Florida Statute 627.7288 Actually Says
The operative language is one sentence long. Florida Statute 627.7288 provides that the deductible provisions of any motor vehicle policy issued in the state by an authorized insurer, providing comprehensive coverage or combined additional coverage, are not applicable to damage to the windshield of any motor vehicle covered under the policy.
Three things follow from that sentence. Your carrier cannot apply your $500 or $1,000 comprehensive deductible to a windshield repair or replacement. It cannot ask you to pay a partial deductible either, because the provision is switched off entirely rather than reduced. And it applies to repair and full replacement alike, so a chip filled for $90 and a laminated windshield replaced for $780 are treated the same way.
The statute has been on the books since 1979 and was last touched in 1997. It still reads that way in the 2025 Florida Statutes. The section heading refers to motor vehicle glass, which is where a lot of the confusion starts, but the operative sentence says windshield. Courts read the operative text, not the heading.
No, Florida Did Not Repeal the Free Windshield Law
In 2023 the Legislature passed CS/SB 1002, signed by the Governor on May 25, 2023 as chapter 2023-136. It is the source of nearly every headline claiming the zero-deductible rule is gone. Read the act and you will find it never touched 627.7288. What it did was rebuild the machinery around glass claims, and the reason was litigation volume.
Florida Department of Financial Services service-of-process data counted 591 glass and windshield lawsuits statewide in 2011. By 2021 that figure was 28,156, and in 2022 it passed 37,000. The pattern behind most of them was consistent: a shop solicited a driver, took an assignment of benefits, billed the carrier well above market, and sued when the carrier paid less. The driver, who was told the glass was free, often learned about the lawsuit filed in their name months later.
- Florida Statute 627.7289 makes an assignment of post-loss motor vehicle glass benefits void and unenforceable on any policy issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2023. That covers ADAS calibration work too. You cannot sign your claim over to a shop, and a shop that hands you an AOB form is handing you an unenforceable document.
- Florida Statute 627.7291 bans steering. No insurer, agent, adjuster, or anyone acting for them may require you to use a particular company or location for windshield replacement, repair, or calibration. They may still explain your comprehensive benefits and your limits, and if they offer you a policy containing a windshield repair arrangement and you accept it, the statute requires them to give you an actuarially sound discount for it.
- Florida Statute 559.920(17) makes it unlawful for a repair shop to offer you a rebate, gift, gift card, cash, coupon, or any other thing of value in exchange for filing a glass claim. The person at the gas station offering you $100 to let them replace your windshield is describing a violation.
The reforms worked on their own terms. The Florida Justice Reform Institute, citing state filing data, reported roughly 83 percent fewer glass cases reaching the courts in 2024 than in 2023. Your deductible waiver survived all of it intact.
Which Glass Is Covered and Which Is Not
This is where most Broward drivers get an unwelcome surprise. The waiver is narrow. A shopping-center light pole that takes out your rear window is a normal comprehensive claim with a normal deductible, and on a $1,000 deductible with a $600 rear glass bill, that means you pay all of it.
| Damaged glass | Deductible under 627.7288 | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Front windshield | Waived | Repair or full replacement with no out-of-pocket cost, provided comprehensive is on the vehicle |
| Driver and passenger side windows | Applies in full | You pay your comprehensive deductible, which often exceeds the cost of the glass |
| Rear window | Applies in full | The statute says windshield, and a rear window is not one |
| Panoramic roof or sunroof glass | Applies in full | Frequently the most expensive glass on a modern car and never deductible-free |
| ADAS recalibration after a windshield replacement | Normally follows the windshield | Billed as part of restoring the windshield, so it usually rides on the same waived deductible. Confirm with your adjuster before the appointment. |
If your deductible is $500 or $1,000 and the side glass runs $350, filing is pointless. You pay the whole bill either way and you have put a claim on your loss history for nothing. Pay the shop directly and keep the claim off the file.
ADAS Recalibration Is the Expensive Half Now
On any 2018-or-newer vehicle, the windshield is a mounting bracket for the forward-facing camera that runs lane keeping, automatic emergency braking, and adaptive cruise. Move the glass and that camera has to be recalibrated, either statically with targets in a controlled bay, dynamically on a road test at set speeds, or both in sequence.
In 2026 a plain windshield replacement typically runs $250 to $800, with the national average around $450 for a standard sedan. Recalibration adds roughly $150 to $600 on top. AAA has put the average around $360 for relocating the components and calibrating them. A camera-equipped crossover in Fort Lauderdale commonly lands between $450 and $900 all in. That is the number your carrier is paying, and it is why comprehensive rates in South Florida have not fallen as fast as the lawsuit counts have.
Florida Statute 559.920(18) requires the shop to tell you, either electronically or in writing in at least 12-point type, whether calibration or recalibration is required as part of the job. Failing to tell you is an unlawful act under the Motor Vehicle Repair Act. Ask for that notice before you authorize anything, and do not accept a shop that skips the calibration to keep the invoice down. An uncalibrated lane-keeping camera is a safety system quietly reporting bad geometry.
Filing a Windshield Claim in Broward County
- Call your carrier or open the claim in its app first. Starting with the insurer, rather than with a shop that approached you in a parking lot, keeps the paperwork clean and the pricing inside network norms.
- Pick your own shop. Under 627.7291 nobody can require you to use a specific location, so a carrier steering you hard toward one vendor is worth pushing back on. A carrier explaining your benefits is not steering.
- Do not sign an assignment of benefits. Under 627.7289 it is void on any policy issued or renewed since July 1, 2023, and signing one puts your name on paperwork that cannot help you.
- Refuse anything of value offered for filing. Cash, gift cards, and deductible rebates on glass claims are prohibited under 559.920(17), and accepting one links you to a shop under regulatory scrutiny.
- Get the ADAS notice in writing, and get confirmation that calibration is included in the claim before the glass comes out.
- Repair the chip early. Damage smaller than a quarter and outside the driver's primary sight line usually fills successfully. Florida heat and the temperature swing from a cold air conditioner against a hot windshield will run that chip into a crack faster than you expect, and a crack means full replacement.
Will a Glass Claim Raise Your Rate?
Section 627.7288 waives the deductible. It says nothing at all about rating, and the marketing claims that a Florida glass claim can never affect your premium go further than the law does. Here is the accurate version. A comprehensive glass claim is not an at-fault loss and does not touch your driving record. One rock chip in three years is statistical noise and no reasonable underwriter will act on it.
Frequency is different. Three glass claims on the same vehicle in eighteen months is a pattern, and Florida carriers do look at claim counts when they re-underwrite a policy, particularly carriers already tightening their book in Broward and Miami-Dade. The deductible stays waived every time. Whether the carrier still wants the risk at renewal is a separate question the statute does not answer.
The practical takeaway is narrower than most drivers assume. Confirm comprehensive is actually on the vehicle, because the waiver is worthless without it. Understand that the free part stops at the front windshield. Handle chips before the Florida sun turns them into replacements. If you are not sure what your policy carries, or your comprehensive premium has climbed while glass litigation across the state has collapsed, that gap is worth a conversation. Our Fort Lauderdale auto insurance page walks through how the coverages fit together, and we are happy to read your declarations page and tell you what is actually on it.