Your friend would normally be held personally responsible for the damages he caused in the accident since he does not have insurance to pay out a claim. He will likely also have other penalties assessed to him by Florida and perhaps also by his home state of Rhode Island.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (HSMV) states that if you were involved in a crash with property damage only, no bodily injuries, where you were at fault and were uninsured you should immediately purchase the required insurance.

Next you should negotiate with each person that sustained property damages to obtain releases for their damages. If the person is insured, you should negotiate with the person's insurance company as the company assumes the rights of compensation (thru subrogation) since they have reimbursed the insured for their loss. You can obtain a release form from your nearest driver license office.

If you are unable to pay the amount of damages in full, you may pursue a monthly payment agreement. With the insurance coverage and releases or monthly repayment agreements, you will be able to provide them upon notice from the department to avoid unnecessary suspensions of your driver license, tags, and registrations.

If there were injuries in the accident then to eliminate the possibility of suspension, your friend should purchase a full liability insurance policy (includes bodily injury liability) as soon as possible and advise the company that you were involved in an uninsured crash and may need a Form SR-22 (certification of liability insurance) in the future.

Again he will need to negotiate with each person or their insurance company to satisfy the losses they incurred. If the other party's insurance company has compensated the person for damages, your friend should contact the insurance company for satisfaction of damages since the insurance company has assumed the loss and can subrogate with him for the monies they have paid out.

Though your friend is an out of state Rhode Island resident going to school in Florida he should be aware that the FL HSMV states that any person who has a car in Florida for more than 90 days during the preceding 365 days, resides in Florida, is employed in Florida or has children in school in Florida must purchase Personal Injury Protection ($10,000) and Property Damage Liability coverage ($10,000). So he was breaking the insurance laws of both RI and FL by having a lapse in his auto insurance coverages.

In Rhode Island being without insurance can cause you to get your license suspended as well as RI division of motor vehicles shall suspend the registration of all vehicles registered in the name of the person as owner. If Rhode Island does place these penalties on him then Rhode Island Statute 31-32-5 states that the suspension or revocation shall remain in effect and the division of motor vehicles shall not issue to that person any new or renewal of license, or register or reregister in the name of the person as owner of the vehicle until permitted under the motor vehicle laws of this state, and only if the person shall give and maintain proof of financial responsibility for the future.

If your friend needs to get more information on what to do in his situation he may try calling the FL HSMV, Customer Service Center, at 850-922-9000 to see what the FL penalties may be and the RI DMV to find out if Rhode Island will also assess him penalties for driving without insurance.