The police never came to my accident. Can I still make a claim?

Yes. A police report is evidence of what happened, who was there and which insurance applies. It is not a condition of Personal Injury Protection, and it is not a condition of the claim against the driver. What Florida does require is that you notify the police when someone is hurt or the property damage reaches $2,000, and, for a minor crash with no officer, that you send a written report to the state within ten days. If neither happened, the claim is still there, and the work is to build the record the report would have given you.

01 What the claim needs

A missing police report does not end a claim, and what replaces it

The claim needs facts, and a report is only one place they can come from. Nothing in the Florida no-fault statute makes a police report a condition of Personal Injury Protection. It asks for initial care within fourteen days (§ 627.736(1)(a)). The claim against the driver turns on fault and on whether the injury meets the threshold, and neither is established by a report.

What a report gives you is a convenient record. Under § 316.066(1)(b) a long-form report records the date, time and place, a description of the vehicles, the names and addresses of the drivers and passengers, the witnesses, the officer, and the insurers. Each of those can be rebuilt from other sources if there is no report.

There is one situation where a report matters more than usual: when the other driver left. A hit and run is usually a claim under your own uninsured motorist coverage, and many policies require prompt police notice (what a hit-and-run claim needs). If that is your situation, tell the police now.

Otherwise the missing report mainly costs you convenience. It does not cost you the claim, and the evidence that would have been in it can still be collected.

A report is a convenient record of the crash. Nothing in Florida law makes it a condition of the claim.

02 What Florida requires

When Florida requires you to report a car accident

You must notify the police when someone is hurt or the damage is at least $2,000. The driver of a vehicle in a crash resulting in injury or death, or damage to any vehicle or other property in an apparent amount of at least $2,000, must immediately give notice by the quickest means to the local police department if the crash is in a municipality, and otherwise to the county sheriff or the nearest Florida Highway Patrol office (§ 316.065(1)). Failing to do so is a noncriminal traffic infraction.

The threshold is $2,000, not $500. Older articles, and some insurance websites, still give a lower figure from earlier versions of the statute. The current statute and the state’s own crash-report page both say $2,000.

You also have duties at the scene whether or not an officer comes. Each driver must give their name, address and vehicle registration number, show a license if asked and if available, and render reasonable assistance to anyone injured (§ 316.062). Each party must also provide proof of insurance (§ 316.066(1)(d)).

When an officer does investigate, the form depends on what happened. A long-form report is required when the crash caused death or injury, or any indication of complaints of pain or discomfort by anyone in it, when it involved a violation of the impaired-driving statute, when a vehicle needed a wrecker, or when a commercial vehicle was involved (§ 316.066(1)(a)). Otherwise the officer completes a short-form report or gives the drivers an exchange-of-information form (§ 316.066(1)(c)).

That first rule has a practical consequence. If you said you were hurt at the scene, the crash is a long-form crash. If you said you were fine and an officer wrote a short form, the report may say so, and an injury that shows itself later has to be explained against that.

03 When nobody comes

What to do when the police do not respond to the crash

If someone was hurt or the damage is $2,000 or more, make the call and make a record that you did. Write down the time, the number you called, the dispatcher’s name or the incident number, and what you were told. If the agency says it is not sending an officer, ask how it wants the crash reported, and write down the answer. Agencies handle this differently, and a note of what you did is what you will want later.

If the crash is minor and no law enforcement report is required, file a self-report. The driver of a vehicle in a crash causing damage that does not require a law enforcement report must submit a written report to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles within ten days of the crash, on the form the department approves (§ 316.066(1)(e)). The department publishes the Driver Report of a Traffic Crash form on its crash reports page and accepts it by mail or electronically.

Count the ten days from the crash, not from when you decide to file. It is a short window, and it is easy to miss when the first days are about the car and the doctor.

Build the record yourself in the meantime. Photographs of the vehicles, the plates, the road and the signs; the other driver’s name, phone, insurance card and license plate; the names and numbers of witnesses; the time and place; and your own written account of what happened, in order, before it fades.

04 Getting the report

How to get a Florida crash report once there is one

For reports filed with the state, the quickest route is the Florida Crash Portal. The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles sells crash reports through its portal for $10.00 per report, with a $2.00 convenience fee on each transaction, and a purchased report is available online immediately and must be downloaded within 48 hours (FLHSMV, Traffic Crash Reports page).

Crash reports are confidential for 60 days, but not from you. The statute makes a report that reveals personal information confidential for sixty days after it is filed, and in the same section allows it to be made available immediately to the parties involved, their legal representatives, their insurers and their insurance agents (§ 316.066(2)(a) and (b)). Someone who is not one of those people has to wait.

The agency that wrote it depends on where the crash was. On the expressways it is the Florida Highway Patrol. In Miami-Dade it is the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office in unincorporated areas or the municipal department for the city where it happened. In Hillsborough it is the Tampa Police Department inside Tampa, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office elsewhere in the county, or the Highway Patrol on the interstates. Each agency’s counter, hours and fees are in how to get your report in Miami-Dade and in Tampa and Hillsborough County.

The officer has ten days to file a long-form report after finishing the investigation. That is why a report is often not available the next morning, and the agency can tell you when to expect it (§ 316.066(1)(a)).

05 What a report does not do

What a report can and cannot be used for

What you tell the officer for the report is protected. A crash report made by a person involved, and any statement made to an officer to complete it, may not be used as evidence in any trial, civil or criminal (§ 316.066(4)). The same does not hold for what you tell an insurance adjuster.

It is not a finding of fault. A report records what an officer saw and was told. How the fault is divided is a separate question, decided on evidence (how the fault percentage works).

If the report is wrong, ask the agency that wrote it. Whether and how a report can be corrected or supplemented is up to the agency. A mistake about the date, the location, a name or a vehicle is worth raising early, and in writing.

It does identify the insurers, and you will want that. A long-form report is required to list the names of the insurance companies for the parties (§ 316.066(1)(b)). For a driver who left, there may be no insurer to list, and that changes what claim you have.

07 What to do now

1. Call the police and keep a record of the callIf anyone is hurt or the damage is $2,000 or more, Florida requires it. Write down the time, who you spoke to and what you were told.
2. Photograph everything before the cars moveBoth vehicles, plates, the road, the signs and signals, the other driver’s insurance card and license, and the surrounding businesses with cameras.
3. Get the other driver’s details and a witness if you canName, address, phone, plate and insurer. A person with no connection to either of you who saw it is worth more than any report.
4. File a self-report with the state within ten days if no report was requiredUse the Driver Report of a Traffic Crash form from the department’s crash reports page. Keep a copy and the date you sent it.
5. Be seen by a doctor within fourteen daysIt is the condition of PIP and it creates the medical record of the injury, whether or not there is a police report.
6. Order the report as soon as it existsThrough the Florida Crash Portal at $10.00 plus the convenience fee, or from the agency that wrote it. As one of the parties, you can get it before the sixty-day confidential period ends.

09 The sources

• Fla. Stat. § 316.065 Duty to notify the policeNotice required for injury, death or damage of at least $2,000. Failure is a noncriminal traffic infraction.
• Fla. Stat. § 316.066 Crash reportsWhen a long-form report is required, the short form and exchange form, the ten-day self-report, confidentiality for sixty days and access for the parties, and the rule that statements made for the report are not evidence at trial.
• Fla. Stat. § 316.062 Duty to give information and render aidEach driver gives name, address and registration, shows a license on request, and renders reasonable assistance.
• Fla. Stat. § 627.736 Personal Injury ProtectionInitial care within 14 days. No police report is required by this section.
• FLHSMV Traffic crash reportsThe Florida Crash Portal, the $10.00 fee, and the Driver Report of a Traffic Crash for minor crashes.