Car Insurance in Fort Myers, FL [The Complete Guide]

Life is complicated enough without all the worry and stress of comparison shopping for auto insurance. Sure, everyone wants the lowest rate possible, but how often has the complexity of getting individualized quotes from different insurers caused you to just give up and take the option you’re most familiar with?

We believe it shouldn’t be hard or time-consuming to make sure that you’re paying the lowest possible auto insurance rate in Fort Myers. That’s why we’ve gathered all of the information you need to compare auto insurance providers in the city in one place.

Keep reading and you’ll see a breakdown of all the factors that affect the auto insurance rates in Fort Myers, as well as some for Florida as a whole. We provide a detailed look at how things like your neighborhood, age, gender, and driving record will impact your rates, and let you know which insurers provide the best rates for your personal situation.

If you want to skip all the details and just start comparison shopping, enter your ZIP code above to find great rates in Fort Myers.

The Cost of Car Insurance in Fort Myers

Premium costs are often the primary factor folks consider when choosing an insurance provider. But how do insurers decide how much to charge in premiums? They usually have a number of factors they look at when assigning rates — everything from your gender and age to your driving record and where you live.

But how do they weigh these individual factors? The process is a little different for each company, and learning what the providers doing business in Fort Myers value most can actually save you a lot of money in the long run.

Does gender and age affect my car insurance in Fort Myers?

Your age and gender are two major factors that insurers weigh when determining what your premiums will be. When it comes to driving, age usually brings experience, and as you can see from the rate information we’ve gathered in the chart below, insurers generally reward experienced older drivers in Fort Myers with lower rates.

As we do with much of the data we’ve collected, we average the rates paid by all drivers, regardless of their coverage levels. Since most drivers get more insurance than the state minimum coverage, our data reflects that. Other factors that may inflate our averages are high-risk drivers and people insuring expensive luxury cars.

As you can see by the numbers we’ve collected, auto insurance rates drop by more than half between the ages of 17-25. The difference in rates for 17-year-olds and 35-year-olds is over $5,000 on average.

While a few states do not allow insurers to charge different rates based on a driver’s gender, Florida is not one of them. As a result, women usually pay less than men for the same amount of coverage. We’ve collected rate information on men and women at different ages in the chart below so you can see just how much of an impact your gender may have on your auto insurance rates.

Our numbers show that, while it does not play as large a role as a driver’s age, gender does impact insurance rates. At age 25, the difference in rates for male and female drivers is a little more than $200 annually, and it goes down from there as a person’s age progresses. But for 17-year-old drivers, the average difference in rates is $1,480.

What are the cheapest ZIP Codes in Fort Myers?

Where you live will affect your insurance rates too. Different neighborhoods present drivers with different risk factors, whether it be theft, vandalism, or flooding, and auto insurers take these into account when establishing their rates. Below we’ve collected the average annual rates paid by drivers in each Fort Myers ZIP code.

Fortunately for drivers living in Fort Myers, the difference between the most and least expensive neighborhoods is about $362 per year, or about $30 a month — enough that you’ll notice the difference, but not enough to be worth moving to a new neighborhood.

What’s the best car insurance company in Fort Myers?

Your age, address, and gender will impact the auto insurance rates you pay, but as we noted earlier, each company weighs those factors differently. While we can’t recreate the calculations used by insurers based on different rate options here, we can tell you what each major insurance company charges for certain types of individuals and situations. We’ve collected that information for you below.

Cheapest Car Insurance Rates by Company

We’ll start by looking at which auto insurance companies charge the least in Fort Myers based solely on the age and marital status of drivers. Below we’ve summarized data from drivers representing a variety of age groups.

As you can see from our data, USAA is usually the least expensive option when it comes to purchasing car insurance in Fort Myers. However, USAA only offers policies to U.S. military service members, veterans, and their families. That means for most Fort Myers residents, your best bet for low-cost insurance is State Farm.

Best Car Insurance for Commute Rates

How far you drive to work each day can be a factor in your insurance rates as well. After all, more time on the road means more opportunities for accidents and more wear and tear on your car’s safety system. In the table below you can see how each of the major Fort Myers auto insurance companies factor commuting distance into their average rates.

Nationwide and Progressive don’t factor the length of your commute into your rates at all, while Allstate’s average premiums increased by $342 when a driver’s commute length went from 10-25 miles each way.

Best Car Insurance for Coverage Level Rates

When it comes to auto insurance — as with most things in life — if you want something extra, you need to be ready to pay more. But each auto insurer prices their policies differently and their rates at each level of coverage will also be different. Below we have priced the average annual rates for the major Fort Myers auto insurance providers by coverage level.

It seems that for all coverage levels, State Farm and USAA have the lowest average annual rates for Fort Myers drivers.

Best Car Insurance for Credit History Rates

This may not be the most welcome news, but car insurance companies believe your credit score is an indication of your overall financial stability and how risky you might be to insure. Drivers with poor credit scores may be penalized with higher premiums.

But how much of a difference does bad credit make? We’ve collected information on Fort Myers drivers and averaged out the yearly rates for those with good, fair, and poor credit. You can find the numbers for seven of the largest auto insurance companies in the table below.

As you can see, different insurers will weigh your credit differently. With Allstate, for example, Fort Myers drivers with poor credit pay nearly twice as much as those with good credit. The company that penalizes drivers with bad credit the least is Nationwide, which only increases rates by $1,561 when a driver’s credit slips from good to poor. Finally, the lowest rates across all types of credit are found with USAA and State Farm.

Best Car Insurance for Driving Record Rates

We’re sure you’ve been heaving since driver’s ed class that your driving record will factor into your insurance rates. But how much does a single traffic violation, accident, or DUI really increase your rates in Fort Myers? Let’s take a look at the rates paid by local drivers to see how different insurers factor in your driving history.

Well, the numbers back up what your driver’s ed instructor told you: a bad driving record will lead to increased insurance rates. However, each insurer treats offenses differently. For example, on average, Progressive charges $1,400 more to drivers with a DUI compared to those with a clean driving record. But for USAA, the increase is only $93 annually.

What are some car insurance factors in Fort Myers?

As previously mentioned, car insurance rates vary based on location, so what you pay in Fort Myers will be different than what your friend in, say, West Palm Beach is paying. Insurance companies consider local demographics, education levels, and poverty rates, among other factors, when deciding how much to charge for auto insurance.

Since the city you live in plays a role in what you’ll pay, let’s go over some basic information about Fort Myers.

Metro Report — Growth and Prosperity

Each year, the Brookings Institution examines the prosperity of 100 U.S. metro areas using a variety of data. In its Metro Monitor 2019 report, Brookings rated the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area 64th in the nation for growth between 2016 and 2017. For comparison, Brookings found the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area to be 39th and the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton area to be 57th.

However, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area fared better in the Brookings Institution’s Prosperity Index, 2016-2017. That index examined gains in productivity, average wages, and standard of living and found the area to be 19th in the country. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach came in 21st and North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton came in 90th.

Finally, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area came in 55th on the Brookings Institution’s Inclusion Index, 2016-2017. That index looks at the employment rate, median earnings, and poverty rate. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area came in 67th and North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton came in 60th.

Median Household Income

According to the Census Bureau, the median household income for Fort Myers was $41,591 for 2017, the most recent year available. That represented a 6.72 percent increase from 2016. However, it was still low for Florida, where the median household income was $50,883. The median for the country as a whole was $57,652.

We can use that information to get a rough idea of how affordable auto insurance is in Fort Myers. The average amount paid annually for auto insurance in the city is $3,132, which means that the typical Fort Myers driver pays roughly 7.5 percent of their household income each year for auto insurance.

If you would like to know what percentage of your annual income you’re currently paying for auto insurance, use our calculator tool below.

Homeownership in Fort Myers

Whether or not you own your home will impact your auto insurance rates. A 2016 Consumer Federation of America study found that drivers who rent pay as much as 47 percent more for their auto insurance than drivers who are homeowners. On average, though, renters paid about 7 percent more.

The Census Bureau reports that in 2017, 46.7 percent of Fort Myers residents owned their own homes. That was up just 0.1 percent from 2016. That’s low by national standards because the average for homeownership across the U.S. is 63.9 percent. For the state of Florida, the average is 67.1 percent.

The median property value in Fort Myers was $185,100 in 2017, a 15.1 percent increase from the 2016 median value of $160,800.

Education in Fort Myers

Fort Myers is home to several post-secondary institutions and technical colleges, the largest being Fort Myers Technical College, which awarded 726 degrees in 2017. That was followed by Florida Academy, which awarded 424 degrees, and Southern Technical College, which awarded 361 degrees.

The most common degree awarded by post-secondary institutions in Fort Myers was in HVAC and Refrigeration Engineering Technology, with 241 degrees awarded. The next most popular was Criminal Justice-Police Science with 133 degrees awarded, followed by Emergency Medical Technician, with 85 degrees awarded.

The Census Bureau’s data for 2018 shows that 82.4 percent of Fort Myers residents over the age of 25 were high school graduates, while 28 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree. Nationwide, 87.7 percent of the population has graduated from high school and 31.5 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree. In Florida, 82.4 percent are high school graduates and 28 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Wage by Race and Ethnicity in Common Jobs in Fort Myers

Unfortunately, when it comes to wages and salaries in Fort Myers (and many other places), race and ethnicity play a role in how much a person makes. Since the Census Bureau does not break down specific numbers for Fort Myers, the following chart shows you the statewide wages for common jobs by race and ethnicity.

As you can see, no one race or ethnicity has an across-the-board economic advantage in Florida, but as a general rule, Asians and whites tend to fare better overall.

Wage by Gender in Common Jobs in Fort Myers

While we also do not have city-level data for wages in common jobs in Fort Myers based on gender, we can see from the census data for Florida that the pay gap is alive and well in the state.

In Florida, men even out-earn women in fields dominated by women, such as teaching and cashiering. In 2017 there were almost 150,000 female elementary and middle school teachers in Florida compared to just under 36,000 males and there were 61,500 female cashiers in the state and only 22,800 male cashiers.

Poverty by Age and Gender in Fort Myers

According to census figures, just over 20 percent of Fort Myers residents — roughly 14,400 people — were living in poverty in 2017. Of those, the largest single group was women between the ages of 25 and 34. You can see the full breakdown by age and gender below.

The census numbers show that for almost every age range the percentage of Fort Myers women living in poverty is higher than the percentage for men, with the differences being especially stark between the ages of 25-44.

Poverty by Race and Ethnicity in Fort Myers

Let’s take a look at the race and ethnicity breakdown of the 20 percent of Fort Myers residents who were living in poverty in 2017.

The Census Bureau also found that fewer than 0.3 percent of Fort Myers residents who were Asian or Native American were living in poverty in 2017, a total of 64 residents.

Employment by Occupations in Fort Myers

The U.S. Census Bureau found that employment in Fort Myers grew by 8.3 percent from 2016 to 2017, with the workforce growing from 28,400 employees to 30,800 employees. The most common jobs for city residents included:

• Sales and Related Occupations — 4,453 people in the workforce
• Office and Administrative Support Occupations — 3,523 people in the workforce
• Management Occupations — 2,925 people in the workforce
• Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations — 2,663 people in the workforce
• Construction and Extraction Occupations — 2,164 people in the workforce

Other common occupations were related to education, cleaning, maintenance, healthcare support, and transportation.

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Driving in Fort Myers

Local road conditions, traffic congestion, and traffic enforcement will all play a role in your insurance rates. Let’s take a look at what conditions are like for drivers in Fort Myers.

What are major roads in Fort Myers?

Since Fort Myers is a mid-sized city, it only has a few non-highway roads where traffic and congestion can be an issue. Two of the most heavily traveled are Cleveland Avenue and Colonial Boulevard, both of which lead to bridges spanning the Caloosahatchee River, which runs along the city’s northern and western borders.

Two other heavily traveled local roads are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Palm Beach Blvd., both of which provide access to the Fort Myers Downtown River District from I-75. Finally, 6 Mile Cypress Parkway is a major road coming into the city from the south.

Major Highways in Fort Myers

The only major interstate running through Fort Myers is I-75, which is one of two major north-south thoroughfares in the state of Florida. The highway begins in Detroit and ends in Miami, so it is the primary route to southern Florida from the midwest. It’s also the most common way for visitors to reach the city.

Other major roads, such as Colonial Boulevard and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, are state highways. However, they are not limited-access roads and present drivers with a number of traffic lights that keep them from progressing across the city very quickly.

Popular Road Trips/Sites

Perhaps the best-known tourist attraction within the Fort Myers city limits is the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, which features the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. The site features a historical museum and a 21-acre botanical garden.

Baseball fans also regularly travel to Fort Myers since it is the home of Fenway South Park, the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox, and the Minnesota Twins Spring Training Headquarters.

In addition to the attractions within the city of Fort Myers, visitors can take advantage of the city’s location on South Florida’s Gulf Coast to make road trips to several nearby nationally known attractions. Those include:

• Everglades National Park — The sprawling subtropical wilderness is probably the most popular tourist attraction for visitors to Fort Myers. While the national park’s main entrance is well over two hours from the city, boat and airboat tours are available in places like Everglades City and Chokoloskee, which are about an hour and a half away.
• Manatee Park — This park on the Orange River offers the opportunity for visitors to view manatees either from the shore or from kayaks that are available for rental. Unfortunately, because the animals are free to come and go, they may not always be around. Your best bet is to check the park’s website for the current viewing status before visiting.
• Big Cypress National Preserve — The preserve is not as well known as the Everglades, but this immense stretch of swampland is only an hour and a half away and is almost as impressive as the better-known Everglades National Park, which borders Big Cypress to the south.
• Marco Island — This island on the Gulf of Mexico is the largest of the 10,000 island chain. It’s home to several large hotels and a beautiful beach and sits about an hour and a half drive from Fort Myers.
• Naples — This coastal city is home to a famous white-sand beach and features a large number of bars and restaurants that allow visitors to eat and drink along the city’s spectacular waterfront.

Road Conditions in Fort Myers

TRIP is a national transportation research nonprofit that monitors road conditions across the U.S. While it often provides breakdowns of the conditions in urban areas, Fort Myers was not listed on its 2019 report. That means we must look to TRIP’s assessment of Florida’s roads for that year to get an idea of what the city’s roads are like.

In 2019, TRIP found that 30 percent of Florida’s roads were in poor to mediocre condition. It explained that driving on roads in need of repair cost the average Florida motorist $352 that year and played a role in one-third of the state’s traffic fatalities.

Does Fort Myers use speeding or red-light cameras?

Florida law allows communities to install red-light cameras to help them catch motorists who fail to stop. Luckily, Fort Myers is not one of the 64 communities currently using such cameras. It also seems that none of the neighboring communities are currently using red-light cameras, either.

According to information collected by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), cameras are not currently being used to enforce speeding laws in any Florida community.

What type of vehicles are in Fort Myers?

SUVs and pickup trucks have become increasingly popular in many parts of the country, but recent surveys have shown that Florida residents are bucking the trend and tend to prefer sedans. In this section, we’ll take a look at which vehicles are preferred by drivers in Fort Myers and the city’s car ownership rate.

Finally, we’ll look at the number that’s probably most important when it comes to setting your insurance rate: auto thefts in Fort Myers and in the surrounding areas.

Most Popular Vehicles Owned

There are no recent numbers available regarding auto sales in Fort Myers, so we’ll need to increase the size of the area we’re looking at for auto sales. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, for the first quarter of 2019, the following cars were the five top sellers in the region:

• Toyota Corolla
• Toyota Camry
• Honda Civic
• Toyota RAV4
• Honda Accord

It seems that South Florida residents are fond of Japanese cars. Indeed, you need to get down to number eight on the list before you come to the Ford F Series pickup truck, which was the most popular vehicle in the country for that year. Some experts have attributed the lack of pickup sales in Florida to the fact that the state’s residents almost never need to deal with snow, ice, or sleet.

How Many Cars per Household

According to data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, the average Fort Myers home had two cars in 2017. That’s on par with the national average for vehicle ownership by household. We break down those numbers a bit further in the table below.

So, on average, Fort Myers residents have roughly the same number of cars per household as the rest of the country. However, the city has significantly more single-car households and significantly fewer households with three or more cars.

Households Without a Car

For 2017, the Census Bureau found that 4.99 percent of Fort Myers households had no car at all. That’s slightly above the national average of 4.37 percent. Both of those numbers are up a bit from 2016 when 4.96 percent of Fort Myers households lacked a car and 4.43 percent of households nationwide did not have one.

Speed Traps in Fort Myers

Luckily for local drivers, Fort Myers does not appear on Speedtrap.org’s list of 10 worst speed traps cities in Florida. Additionally, none of the communities surrounding Fort Myers appear on the list. That means you can drive in and around Fort Myers without being caught in a speed trap set to catch unsuspecting drivers. Nevertheless, you should still obey the speed limit.

Vehicle Theft in Fort Myers

Annual crime statistics collected by the FBI show that the city of Fort Myers had 257 vehicle thefts reported in 2018. Nearby Cape Coral had 178 thefts.

Both of these cities are in Lee County, which had 757,462 total residents in 2018 and 1,063 vehicle thefts reported for that year. That is a rate of 140 vehicle thefts per 100,000 residents. Fortunately, this is lower than the national average of 237 per 100,000 residents.

The website NeighborhoodScout.com has analyzed all of the crime data for Fort Myers and determined the safest neighborhood in the city is Belle Largo, located on the city’s southern border. The neighborhoods around the Fiddlesticks Country Club and the Forest Country Club rounded out the top three.

How is traffic in Fort Myers?

Residents in most areas complain about how tough it is to get around town during rush hour. In Fort Myers, you’re likely to hear residents complain about the so-called “snowbirds” fleeing the winter weather elsewhere in the country and clogging the roads each winter.

Unfortunately, there are no statistics looking at snowbirds and traffic in the city, so we need to look at more traditional measures of congestion to get an idea of what it’s like to drive around Fort Myers.

Traffic Congestion

It seems that congestion is not a significant issue for drivers in Fort Myers or the surrounding areas. Only one of the three major organizations that analyze traffic congestion list the area on any of their lists of the country’s most congested cities. TomTom found the Cape Coral-Fort Myers region to be the nation’s 28th most congested for 2019.

TomTom ranked the Cape Coral-Fort Myers region as the 272nd most congested in the world for 2019 with the average commuter losing 9 minutes for every 30-minute morning commute and 12 minutes on an afternoon commute, adding up to 80 lost hours per year. Additionally, it found non-highways were the region’s most congested roads.

The other two organizations monitoring congestion, INRIX and Numbeo, did not include Fort Myers on their lists of congested cities.

Numbeo’s Northern America: Traffic Index by City 2019 listed the four most congested Florida cities — Miami (4th), Orlando (16th), Tampa (17th) and Jacksonville (21st). It found drivers in those cities lost between 35 and 43 minutes each day to congestion.

INRIX found the same three cities to be among the nation’s most congested, but ranked them a bit differently. It ranked Miami 12th, Tampa 17th, Orlando 23rd, and Jacksonville 39th. It found drivers in those cities lost between 60 and 105 hours each year to congestion.

Transportation

The average Fort Myers resident who works has a commute time of just under 24 minutes, according to census data. That’s roughly two minutes less than the average commute time for all U.S. employees. Census data also shows that fewer than 2 percent of city commuters face so-called “super commutes” of greater than 90 minutes, which is less than the 2.7 percent nationwide.

It also seems that Fort Myers residents have been driving alone to work in increasing numbers. The Census Bureau found that in 2017, just under 77 percent of city residents drove alone to work. That number increased by almost 7 percent from 2013, when just under 70 percent of residents drove alone.

Census data showed that 11 percent of Fort Myers residents carpooled to work in 2017, a 6 percent decrease from 2013, when 17 percent of residents carpooled to work. Finally, the data showed that 4.8 percent of residents worked at home, 2.6 percent took public transit, and 2 percent walked.

Busiest Highways

The only major interstate that runs through Fort Myers is I-75, but the interstate is not generally known for being particularly busy or congested near the city. The most traveled portion of I-75 runs through Atlanta and sees more than 274,000 cars a day, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Fortunately, the Lee County Department of Transportation collects data on traffic in the county. That data shows that in Fort Myers, the busiest local roads in 2018 were Colonial Boulevard, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and Cleveland Avenue (US-41).

How safe are Fort Myers streets and roads?

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) collects data on fatal accidents nationwide but does not break them down by city. Therefore, if we’re going to be looking at road safety for Fort Myers, we’ll need to look at the NHTSA’s statistics on Lee County.

The NHTSA’s data shows that Lee County had 94 fatal crashes, which works out to 10.26 fatal crashes per 100,000 in population. That is below the national average of 12 vehicle deaths per 100,000. Check out the table below for more information on fatal accidents in Lee County.

When looking at the chart above, you need to remember that a single fatal accident may involve a number of different factors tracked by the NHTSA. For example, if a motorcycle driver dies after driving into a ditch after he lost control while speeding, it would be recorded in the motorcycle, speeding, and leaving the roadway categories.

Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report

Each year, Allstate ranks 200 U.S. cities based on how safe it is to drive there. Unfortunately, in 2019, Fort Myers did not make the top 200. But its neighbor across the Caloosahatchee River did. Cape Coral was named the country’s 10th safest driving city because its drivers averaged 12.2 years between insurance claims. The national average is 10.6 years between claims.

Cape Coral performed better than other cities in the region. St. Petersburg was ranked 49th in the country at 10.3 years between claims and Hialeah came in at 125, with 8.4 years between claims.

Ridesharing

Lyft, Uber, and traditional taxies are currently available in Fort Myers if you need to get around town and you don’t have your own car. We looked into some rates for getting around Fort Myers using RideGuru’s fare comparison tool on a Wednesday afternoon and found the following.

Even the longest ride we looked at, from downtown Fort Myers to Southwest Florida International Airport, was still fairly reasonable using a ridesharing company, with rates starting at $20 for Lyft.

E-Star Repair Shops

Esurance sponsors a program known as E-star that allows customers to monitor their repairs online using its RepairView service. The service lets drivers see daily photos of their vehicle being repaired, get repair updates, and contact the shop directly. Esurance chooses only the shops with the highest quality of work and service for this program. According to the E-star website, the following repair shops in the Fort Myers area received high ratings.

These repair shops are all within a 30-mile radius of Fort Myers. Only three are in Fort Myers or Cape Coral.

What is the weather like in Fort Myers

Fort Myers is known for temperatures running in the mid-to-high-70s through the winter and temperatures in the 90s during the summer, so the city’s drivers do not need to worry about snow, sleet, or ice while driving. But from June until September it does get above-average rainfall of between 7.5 and 10 inches a month, which can lead to wet, slick conditions and flooding.

The city has also suffered more than its share of natural disasters over its history. Lee County has had 21 natural disasters, 13 of which were presidentially-declared as such. There have also been five declared emergencies. The average U.S. county has had 13 natural disasters.

The natural disasters for Lee County have included 10 hurricanes, six tropical storms, five fires, and one freeze. That number adds up to more than 21, but some incidents have been assigned to more than one category.

Is public transit available in Fort Myers?

Fort Myers is served by Lee County’s bus system, known as LeeTran. LeeTran operates 24 bus routes, a transit program for disabled residents, and an employer vanpool program. The system boasts 50 full-sized buses and 10 trolleys that provide park-and-ride services for various area beaches.

The operating hours of LeeTran buses vary by route, but generally, the system operates from 5 a.m. until 9:45 p.m. Cash bus fare is $1.50 and an all-day bus pass costs $4. Various multi-day passes are available, including a seven-day pass for $15 and a 31-day pass for $40. The trolley fare is 75 cents and a one-day trolley pass is $2.

Are other Alternate Transportation options available in Fort Myers?

While it seems like bike and scooter sharing services are popping up in most U.S. cities, the trend has yet to hit Fort Myers. However, bike rentals are available from a number of cycle shops.

If you’re looking to rent an electric scooter, you may be out of luck. It’s also unclear if scooter sharing services would even be welcome, as they are banned in a number of Florida cities and Fort Myers city council has already considered enacting similar legislation.

Is parking easy in Fort Myers?

There are a variety of parking options for drivers visiting the Fort Myers Downtown Historic District and the waterfront between the Caloosahatchee Bridge and Edison Bridge, including seven parking lots and garages. Many of the streets also have so-called Zip Zone parking where drivers are allowed to park for up to two hours for free.

Additionally, there are several streets with 10-hour meters, including Edwards Drive and Royal Palm Avenue. Parts of Second Street, Lee Street, and Jackson street have 10-hour parking meters as well. Finally, there are a few streets with two-hour meters, including First Street between Lee and Fowler Streets and Lee Street between Second and Bay Streets.

Some Fort Myers lots also have free parking for limited periods. The Centennial Park Lot, for example, is under the Caloosahatchee Bridge and drivers may park there for up to two hours free. The Main Street Garage and the City of Palms Garage charge $1 per hour, not to exceed $5 per day.

How is the air quality in Fort Myers?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2019 Air Quality Index Report for Lee County shows that, out of the 273 days for which the agency had air quality readings, it had 238 days where the air quality was good. The EPA said the county had 34 days of moderate air quality and one day that was unhealthy for sensitive groups. There were no unhealthy or very unhealthy days.

Military/Veterans

According to the Census Bureau, there are 3,268 veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars currently living in Fort Myers. Of those veterans, 1,462 fought in the Vietnam War, which comprises the largest single group of veterans.

Your status as a veteran may be important when it comes to buying auto insurance because many insurers offer discounted rates to veterans. Also, if you are currently in the military, you may be eligible for auto insurance discounts from the following providers:

• Allstate
• Esurance
• Farmers
• Geico
• Liberty Mutual
• MetLife
• Safe Auto
• Safeco
• State Farm
• The General
• USAA

If you’re a veteran or are currently serving, keep in mind that USAA is often the least expensive option when it comes to purchasing auto insurance, and the company only offers policies to active duty military, veterans, and their families. If you check out the above section where we addressed the cheapest rates by company, you will see that USAA is very affordable.

Unique Fort Myers Laws

Before we finish up, let’s take a look at these important laws that govern driving in both Fort Myers and the rest of Florida. If you’re a resident, it’s a good idea to brush up on these laws, and if you’re just planning to visit, you may not even be aware of them, so read closely.

• Law enforcement may pull drivers over for texting while behind the wheel, even if that is their only violation.
• Foreign tourists are not allowed to drive using their home-country licenses. To drive they are required to have an international driver’s permit issued by their country of residence.
• Drivers on two-lane roads in Florida are required to reduce their speed to 20 MPH under the posted speed limit when approaching stopped police, emergency, sanitation or utility vehicles. If the speed limit is 20 MPH or less, drivers must reduce their speed to 5 MPH.
• When police vehicles are stopped on a roadway with multiple lanes, drivers must move to the lane furthest away from the police vehicle, or slow down to 20 MPH below the posted speed if you are unable to move over.

Car Insurance FAQs

In the list below we have answers to some commonly asked questions regarding auto insurance in Fort Myers.

What are the minimum auto coverage levels for Florida?

To register your vehicle in Florida you will need to provide proof of insurance to the DMV showing that your coverage meets state minimum levels. Those levels are:

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

Unlike most other states, Florida does not require bodily injury liability coverage for injuries that were caused by a policyholder that was at-fault in an accident.

What are the penalties for failing to carry auto insurance?

If a Florida law enforcement officer asks to see your proof of insurance and you are unable to provide it, you may be fined between $150 and $500 and have your license suspended for up to three years.

How long do I have to change my insurance address?

It varies by the provider, but most auto insurance companies will say you need to report your move within 30 days. While some drivers do not report changes in their address when they’re afraid it might cause a rate increase, your insurer will discover the move when you change your vehicle registration to reflect your new address. Additionally, lying about your address to reduce rates can be prosecuted as insurance fraud.

Who pays if I get into an accident in Fort Myers?

Florida is one of a small number of “no-fault states.” That means if you’re in an auto accident involving two or more vehicles, the drivers must turn to their insurance policy for claims, no matter who was at fault. However, under Florida law, the maximum per-person recovery amount is $10,000. That means you need to file a lawsuit against the other driver to recover if you have more than $10,000 in personal injuries.

Living near the ocean causes salt damage to cars. Does living near the ocean increase rates?

It is well-established that living within 10 miles of the ocean can cause the metal on your car to rust more quickly and the damage increases the closer you get to the ocean. The resulting corrosion looks bad and can be expensive to repair, but there is no evidence that it creates any safety issues or that insurers will increase your rates as a result.

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