Fort Lauderdale is a city built, at least in part, on visitors. Between Port Everglades sending millions of cruise passengers through Broward County every year and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport handling tens of millions of travelers, the volume of tourists behind the wheel of rental cars on South Florida roads is shocking.
Hertz, Enterprise, Avis, Budget, National, and a dozen other companies operate out of FLL and from locations throughout the city, putting unfamiliar drivers in unfamiliar vehicles on roads they don’t know — sometimes in the middle of heavy traffic, sometimes after a red-eye flight, sometimes both.
The results show up in accident statistics. Rental car drivers are more likely to be navigating with GPS, more likely to be fatigued or disoriented, and less likely to know the local traffic patterns that experienced South Florida drivers have internalized over the years. When a rental car is involved in a serious accident, the injuries to other drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians can be severe, and sorting out who is responsible and which insurance actually covers what is far more complicated than most people expect.
If you were hurt in an accident involving a rental car in Fort Lauderdale or anywhere in Broward County, Rosen Injury Law can help. Our Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers have spent more than 20 years handling serious personal injury cases throughout South Florida and have recovered over $125 million for our clients. Rental car accident cases involve a distinct set of legal issues that general practitioners often miss. We know this terrain.
How the Graves Amendment Affects Rental Car Accident Claims
This is the piece of the puzzle that surprises most people, and it’s important enough to address head-on.
Before 2005, Florida’s Dangerous Instrumentality Doctrine created real exposure for rental car companies. Under that doctrine, the owner of an inherently dangerous item — including a motor vehicle — could be held liable for injuries caused by someone using it, even if the owner wasn’t at fault. For rental companies, that meant every accident involving one of their cars potentially exposed them to a lawsuit.
Congress effectively ended that in 2005 with the Graves Amendment, codified at 49 U.S.C. § 30106. The federal law shields rental and leasing companies from vicarious liability — meaning they generally cannot be sued simply because they owned the car that caused your injuries. As long as a rental company is in the business of renting vehicles and wasn’t itself negligent or engaged in criminal wrongdoing, it walks away from the accident legally protected.
Florida has since reinforced this framework through its own statutes, and courts have consistently upheld the Graves Amendment’s preemption of Florida’s traditional vicarious liability rules. The practical effect: if a tourist in a Hertz rental runs a red light and T-bones your car, Hertz is almost certainly not a defendant in your case.
That doesn’t mean you’re without recourse. It means you need to know exactly where to look. That’s where an injury lawyer in Fort Lauderdale comes in.
Insurance Coverage For Rental Car Accident Claims
When the rental company is shielded from vicarious liability, the claim shifts — but it doesn’t disappear. The primary target becomes the at-fault driver’s own coverage and the insurance attached to the rental transaction itself.
Every rental car in Florida is legally required to carry a minimum of $10,000 in Personal Injury Protection and $10,000 in Property Damage Liability coverage. That’s built into every rental agreement, regardless of whether the driver purchased any additional protection at the counter. For a serious accident, those minimums are nowhere near sufficient — but they’re the starting point, and understanding what layers sit on top of them is where experienced legal counsel matters.
Beyond the baseline, the coverage picture can include the renter’s own personal auto insurance policy, which typically extends to rental vehicles. It can include any Supplemental Liability Insurance or Collision Damage Waiver the renter purchased. It can include credit card rental coverage, though most card policies cover vehicle damage only — not personal injury liability. In cases involving out-of-state or international tourists, which Fort Lauderdale sees in significant numbers, the renter may have no meaningful liability coverage at all beyond the statutory minimum.
When the at-fault driver is underinsured or uninsured, your own Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage under Florida Statute § 627.727 may be the most important policy in the room. This is coverage that too many Floridians carry at inadequate limits or waive entirely — and its value becomes painfully obvious when the person who hurt you turns out to have the bare minimum.
When the Rental Company May Be Held Liable
The Graves Amendment is not absolute. There are real exceptions, and pursuing them requires the kind of investigative work that turns up negligence the company would prefer to keep buried.
A rental company can be held liable if its own negligence contributed to the accident. Renting a vehicle with known mechanical defects — bad brakes, worn tires, a malfunctioning steering component — and sending that car out on the road anyway is negligence. Failing to conduct adequate safety inspections between rentals is negligence. Renting to a driver with an obviously invalid license, or ignoring clear warning signs that a customer was impaired at the time of rental, can also expose the company to direct liability claims.
These situations require evidence — maintenance records, inspection logs, rental transaction records, employee procedures — that companies don’t volunteer. When our investigation reveals that a rental company’s own practices put a dangerous vehicle or driver on the road, that evidence significantly changes the case.
Rosen Injury Law Is Here To Help
Rental car accident cases in Fort Lauderdale involve overlapping insurance policies, federal preemption law, tourist defendants who may be difficult to locate, and insurance carriers experienced in minimizing claims like yours. Getting to full compensation requires someone who knows this specific legal environment and isn’t afraid to push back hard.
Rosen Injury Law has been doing exactly that in South Florida for over 20 years. We’ve recovered more than $125 million for injured clients. We have the experience, skills, and resources to help you secure maximum compensation for your damages. We work on a contingency basis, so you pay nothing until we recover for you.
If you were hurt in a rental car accident in Fort Lauderdale or Broward County, call us today at (954) 787-1500 or visit our contact page and schedule a free consultation. The insurance maze is complicated. We know the way through.