Homestead hit and run lawyer

Which Florida laws apply to a Homestead hit and run claim

The rules are the same across Florida, so they are written out in full on one page rather than repeated here. They are explained on the statewide hit and run page, with the statute text linked.

Two things pay when the other driver is gone, and neither one needs that driver identified. PIP pays regardless of who caused the crash — the 14-day rule applies the same as always. Above PIP, the claim is against your own uninsured motorist coverage.

Here is the part that is usually written wrong. Section 627.727 never mentions hit-and-run or unidentified vehicles. It requires UM coverage unless there is a written rejection on a form approved by the office, and it extends "uninsured motor vehicle" to an insolvent insurer, limits below your damages, and a policy excluding a nonfamily driver. Whether a driver who fled is covered comes from your policy’s own definition, which makes the policy the document that answers it.

And the deadline is not the one people assume. A negligence claim against the driver, if identified, is two years. A UM claim is an action on your insurance policy — a contract founded on a written instrument — which § 95.11(2)(b) gives five years. That is not a reason to wait.

What follows is the part that is specific to Miami-Dade County — where these claims arise, where you will be treated, which courthouse the case goes to, and how the records are obtained.

What actually answers the question

Most people in this situation wait for the police to find the car, because that feels like the thing the case depends on. It usually is not. The recovery comes from coverage that does not require the other driver to be identified at all.

And the statute is not where the answer is. Section 627.727 never mentions hit-and-run or unidentified vehicles. What it does is require uninsured motorist coverage on every bodily injury policy unless a named insured rejected it in writing on a form approved by the office, and extend the definition of an uninsured motor vehicle to an insolvent insurer, to limits below your damages, and to a policy that excludes a nonfamily driver.

Whether a driver who fled is covered comes from your own policy’s definition of an uninsured motor vehicle. Which makes the policy — not the statute and not the crash report — the document that decides the case. It is a document the insurer will send on request, and reading it is the first useful thing that happens.

There is often more coverage than one policy. UM frequently extends to a resident relative, so a household with two policies may have two sources, and whether coverage stacks across the vehicles on a policy changes the limit substantially.

The geography that keeps these unsolved

South Dade has the conditions a fleeing driver needs, and it has them everywhere. Long two-lane roads with no lighting. Krome Avenue and Card Sound Road with almost nobody living alongside them. Field entrances and farm roads that go somewhere without passing a camera.

And it has two exits. The Homestead Extension of the Turnpike, and US-1 running south to the Keys. From most of this area a vehicle can be on one of them in minutes and out of the county before a report has been taken.

The camera coverage is thin and it is perishable. There are cameras on the US-1 retail strip, at packing house gates and on residential doorbells, and almost all of them overwrite within days. Identifying which ones existed and asking for the footage in writing, early, is the only version of this that works.

None of which changes the claim. It changes the odds that the driver is found, and the point of the UM analysis is that the recovery does not depend on it.

Fourteen days, whoever caused it

The most common and most costly mistake in a hit-and-run is waiting. People wait for the police investigation, or for the insurer to decide something, and the fourteen-day PIP window closes while they do.

Personal Injury Protection does not care who caused the crash. It pays up to $10,000, covering 80 percent of medical expenses, and under § 627.736 it pays nothing at all unless initial treatment began within fourteen days.

It also has nothing to do with whether the other driver was found. Which means the first week in a hit-and-run looks identical to the first week in an ordinary crash: get treated, get the record created, and get the agency and report number written down.

And report it immediately. Section 316.065(1) requires immediate notice to law enforcement for a crash involving injury or at least $2,000 in property damage, and your own policy will require prompt notice of a UM claim as a condition of it. A late report is the first thing an insurer points at.

What to collect when there is no other driver

Write down everything that was seen, immediately, before it is smoothed over by memory. The color, the body style, any part of the plate, a bumper sticker, a dent, which direction it went. A partial plate and a vehicle description is frequently enough for an agency to work with.

Photograph the paint transfer and the damage before anything is repaired. Paint on your vehicle identifies a make and a color, and the height and angle of the damage says something about what hit it. Repairing the car first destroys the only physical evidence in the case.

Ask for footage in writing, and within days. The businesses on US-1 and Campbell Drive, packing house and nursery gates, and residences with doorbell cameras. A verbal request to a manager does not preserve anything, and the retention is short.

Get the names at the scene. This matters more here than in a dense part of the county, because a witness on US-1 may be from out of the area and genuinely unreachable a week later. One phone number taken at the roadside can be the whole identification.

A UM claim is a claim against your own company

This surprises people and it should be said plainly: an uninsured motorist claim is a claim against your own insurance company, under your own contract. It is handled by adjusters whose job is to value it, and that is the structure rather than a betrayal.

Which means the ordinary dynamics apply. There is a demand, a response, a disagreement about value, and a process for resolving it. Your insurer is not acting improperly by disputing the amount; it is doing what the contract sets it up to do.

The policy sets the practical calendar, not the statute. Section 95.11(2)(b) gives five years for an action on a written instrument, but the policy itself will require prompt notice, cooperation, and sometimes an examination under oath. Missing a contractual condition can cost the claim long before any statute runs.

And it is the reason these claims frequently need somebody on the other side of the table. Not because the insurer is behaving badly, but because a claim valued by the company that has to pay it is a negotiation, and a negotiation is easier with the policy, the records and the law in front of you.

Where the Homestead office is, and how to get there

DAPENALAW is at 100 NE 15th Street, Suite 210, Homestead, FL 33030, open Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 17:00. The direct number is (786) 900-0184.

The office is at 100 NE 15th Street in downtown Homestead, a short drive from the Florida Turnpike and from US-1, and minutes from the South Dade Justice Center where many of these cases are heard. It is the closest office for Florida City, the Redland, Leisure City and Naranja.

You do not have to come in. The first conversation can be by phone or video, documents are handled electronically, and where an injury makes travel difficult the meeting happens where you are. The Homestead office is the closest one for Homestead, Florida City, Leisure City, Naranja, Princeton, Goulds, the Redland, Silver Palm and the area around Homestead Air Reserve Base. The Sunset Drive office in South Miami is usually the shorter drive from Kendall, Cutler Bay and the rest of the county.

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