In Ontario, when you apply for insurance, you are asked if you've had any accidents in the past 6 yrs. As a broker, we hope for honest answers, but rarely get them. We run a report (Autoplus) by using your drivers licence number. These reports are not 100% accurate all the time. It's based on information that insurance companies provide to the company that compiles info for the Autoplus. Then we have to rely on people to enter the info correctly. Quite often, they can type one little thing wrong and it looks like a client has had an at fault accident, when they haven't. The claims information is provided by insurance companies in Ontario.
In my 10+ years as an insurance broker, I've never seen an out of province accident show up on one of these reports. So to make a long story short, an accident in Florida isn't going to show up unless you are making a claim with your own insurer. Police reports done in Florida or any other jurisdiction won't come back to your insurance company. However, if you get a ticket, like following too close, that would appear on your Ontario Motor Vehicle Report which would generate the question from your insurance company "What happened that you got that ticket?". Then your company might find out.
What happens in some cities in Ontario is that the police depts are directly reporting all accidents to insurance companies. I believe Toronto might be one of those police depts. that does this. I know it doesn't impress some insurance companies, because if a client doesn't want to make a claim, the insurance company doesn't really want to be bothered with it, especially the small stugg. I know of an employee of an insurance company who backed into a pole in a parking garage, for some reason the police had to be advised (I can't remember why), he had no plans of making a claim, he was just planning to fix it & be done with it. But Toronto Police reported it to the insurance co. that he was with (and worked for). His rates weren't affected, he paid for it himself, but that's a single veh accident.
I know Windsor police doesn't report directly to insurers (yet), nor does the OPP.
Your best bet is to call your own insurer/broker and see how an accident with a rental, to which you've bought the collision waiver insurance would affect your insurance. Most brokers will tell you it won't. But if your insured with a direct writer or group co., like the various banks, you'll most likely be speaking to someone in India, so don't expect accurate or good advice. And be careful they don't go reporting an accident that you didn't have!
