Florida car accident lawyer

How does PIP insurance work after a Florida car accident?

Florida is a no-fault state, which means your own policy pays the first medical bills no matter who caused the crash. Fault does not enter the picture until PIP is exhausted or the injury clears the threshold below.

Inside the $10,000 limit, PIP covers 80% of reasonable and necessary medical bills after fee-schedule reductions, 80% of prescriptions, 100% of replacement services such as childcare and housekeeping, and up to $5,000 in death benefits. Your deductible comes off the top. A serious injury passes that total in weeks.

What happens after depends on Fla. Stat. § 627.737. In an auto case you cannot claim pain and suffering from the at-fault driver unless the injury is permanent, involves significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, involves significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, or caused death. Whether an injury is permanent is a medical opinion, usually given when you reach maximum medical improvement — which is why a case should not be settled while treatment is still running.

You did not see a doctor straight away. What now?

A delay is a problem to be explained, not an automatic end to the claim. It gives an insurer a story — that the injury was minor, or unrelated, or caused by something else — and that story has to be answered with facts rather than dismissed.

The reasons people actually delay are ordinary and documentable: no transport, no money, work that could not be missed, children to look after, fear, or simply expecting the pain to pass in a few days. Any of those can be explained. What matters is that the explanation is honest and that it lines up with the records, the symptoms and what happened in the crash.

There is one deadline the explanation cannot rescue. Personal Injury Protection requires initial medical attention within fourteen days, and after that window PIP pays nothing at all. Fla. Stat. § 627.736. That is a separate question from whether you still have a claim against the at-fault driver — you may well, and the two should not be confused.

If the fourteen days have already passed, the claim is not necessarily over and it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Who pays if the driver who hit me has no insurance?

Florida requires drivers to carry PIP and property damage liability. It does not require bodily injury liability — the coverage that actually pays an injured person. A driver can be fully insured under Florida law and still have nothing available to pay you.

So the first question in a serious case is not what the other driver did. It is what coverage exists anywhere. There are four places to look.

The at-fault driver’s bodily injury coverage, if they bought any. Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which is frequently the largest source of recovery in a serious Florida crash — and if it is stacked across the vehicles on your policy, the limit multiplies. A resident relative’s policy, because UM coverage generally follows the person, so a household policy may respond even though you were in someone else’s car. A commercial policy, where the at-fault driver was working, driving a company vehicle, or driving for Uber or Lyft; the vehicle’s owner can also be liable separately from the driver.

One detail worth checking rather than assuming: under Fla. Stat. § 627.727 an insurer must offer UM coverage, and any rejection has to have been made on an approved form. Where a policy shows no UM, whether that rejection was validly obtained is a real question.

Who pays if I was hurt in an Uber or Lyft?

A rideshare crash is worth asking about because the coverage swings from $50,000 to $1 million depending on what the driver’s app was doing at the moment of impact. Fla. Stat. § 627.748 sets two tiers, and the gap between them is the whole case.

While the driver is logged on to the app but not carrying anyone, the policy has to provide at least $50,000 for death and bodily injury per person, $100,000 per incident, and $25,000 for property damage. Once the driver is engaged in a prearranged ride, primary liability coverage of at least $1 million applies.

The timing detail matters more than people expect. Under the statute a prearranged ride begins when the driver accepts the request — not when the passenger gets in — and ends when the last rider leaves the vehicle. A driver on the way to collect a passenger is already inside the $1 million period. So is a driver who has just dropped someone at the curb if another rider is still aboard.

Which means the evidence that decides the value of the claim is not at the scene at all. It is the trip record held by the company: when the request came in, when it was accepted, the route, and when the ride closed. That record is requested in writing, early, and it is the reason a rideshare crash should not be handled on the assumption that the driver’s personal policy is all there is.

Can the owner of the car be sued if someone else was driving?

In Florida the owner of a vehicle can be liable for the way someone else drove it. A car is treated as a dangerous instrumentality, so an owner who hands the keys over answers for the harm done with them. That is why the first question in a claim is who owned the vehicle, not only who was behind the wheel.

The liability is capped rather than unlimited. Under Fla. Stat. § 324.021(9)(b) an owner who is a natural person and who lent the car is liable up to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per incident for bodily injury, plus $50,000 in property damage. If the driver was uninsured, or carried less than $500,000 in combined coverage, the owner is exposed to a further amount of economic damages on top.

Rental and lease companies sit under their own rule in the same statute, and a dealer lending a service loaner has a further exception. None of this is academic in a serious crash: an at-fault driver with $25,000 in coverage and an owner with a homeowner’s policy and a house are two very different defendants, and the registration is what tells you which one you have.

Where the driver was working — making deliveries, driving a company truck, running an errand for an employer — the employer’s commercial policy is usually the largest one in the file, and the question becomes what the driver was doing at that moment rather than who owned the vehicle.

What happens if a city, county or state vehicle hit me?

If the vehicle that hit you belonged to a city, a county, a school board, a transit agency or the state, almost every deadline on this page changes. Fla. Stat. § 768.28 waives sovereign immunity, but only on conditions, and missing one of them ends the claim no matter how clear the fault.

The claim has to be presented in writing to the appropriate agency within three years of when it accrued — two years where the crash caused a death. For every defendant except a municipality, a county or the Space Authority, the same written claim also goes to the Florida Department of Financial Services. No lawsuit may be filed until the claim is denied in writing, and if nothing comes back within six months the law treats the silence as a denial.

The suit deadline then runs four years from accrual rather than the two years that applies to an ordinary negligence claim. That is one of the few places where a claim against the government has longer than a claim against a private driver — and it is also the deadline most often assumed to be shorter.

What recovery is available is capped as well: $200,000 to any one person, and $300,000 for everyone injured in the same incident. A judgment can be entered above those figures, but collecting the excess requires an act of the Legislature. In a catastrophic crash with a government vehicle, the cap is frequently the reason to look hard for a second defendant who is not a government body.

Can I still recover if I was partly at fault?

Since March 2023, a person found more than 50% at fault in a Florida negligence case recovers nothing at all. Before that, fault reduced a recovery — 30% at fault meant 30% less. Now it is a cliff, under Fla. Stat. § 768.81.

That change is why the first week of a claim matters more than it used to. An insurer defending a case now has an outcome worth pursuing that costs it almost nothing to attempt: push the injured person’s share of the fault past half and the claim is worth zero, regardless of how badly they were hurt.

It is also why the recorded statement matters so much. An adjuster calls early and sounds helpful. The questions are not idle — where exactly did it hurt that day, have you ever had back trouble, why did you stop treatment for those three weeks. Every answer is being measured against a threshold and a percentage.

The crash report blamed you. That is not the end of it.

The police report is not evidence in a civil injury trial, and neither is a citation. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(4) says the crash report, and any statement made to an officer for the purpose of completing it, may not be used as evidence in any trial, civil or criminal. It is the accident report privilege, and almost nobody knows it exists.

That matters because of what people conclude when the report goes against them. The officer arrived after it happened, took two accounts, formed a view in a few minutes and wrote it down. If that view was wrong, the written word does not travel into the courtroom with it. A ticket issued to you is not admissible against you, and a ticket issued to the other driver is not admissible for you either. The rule cuts both ways.

None of which makes the report useless. It is still the fastest route to the things a case is actually built from: the witnesses and their numbers, the vehicle and insurance details, the diagram, the location and the responding agency. Get it, read it, and ask for a correction where the narrative is wrong — but do not treat the officer’s conclusion as the verdict on your claim.

There are limits worth knowing. The privilege covers the report and what was said for it; it does not make every fact disappear. An officer may testify about things independently observed, and chemical test results are handled under their own rules in the same statute. Fault is ultimately decided on the evidence put in front of a jury, not on a box ticked at the roadside.

Can I still make a claim with a pre-existing injury?

Having hurt the same part of your body before does not bar a claim, and hiding it is the thing that actually damages one. The questions that matter are whether the crash caused a new injury, aggravated something already there, accelerated symptoms, or required treatment you would not otherwise have needed.

Florida law allows recovery for the aggravation of a pre-existing condition. What it requires is proof, which means the prior medical records are obtained deliberately and the picture before the crash is separated from the picture after it. That comparison is the case on causation.

An insurer will look for the prior injury whether or not you mention it; medical records are requested as a matter of course. A condition disclosed at the start is a fact to be explained. The same condition found later, after you said there was nothing, becomes a credibility problem that is much harder to repair.

So the instruction is the uncomfortable one: tell your doctors and your lawyer about the old back injury, the earlier crash, the shoulder that was never quite right. Full disclosure is what lets anyone argue causation properly.

What can the insurance company make me do?

There is a real difference between the at-fault driver’s insurer and your own, and the page that tells you to say nothing to anyone gets it wrong. You are under no obligation to give a recorded statement to the carrier for the driver who hit you. Your own policy is a contract you agreed to, and it comes with duties.

Under Fla. Stat. § 627.736(6)(g) submitting to an examination under oath is a condition precedent to receiving PIP benefits, though the questioning is limited to relevant matters. Refusing one does not merely annoy the carrier; it can lawfully stop the benefits.

Your PIP insurer may also require you to attend a medical examination with a physician it chooses, under § 627.736(7). The insurer pays for it, and it has to be held in the municipality where you are being treated or somewhere reasonably accessible. If you unreasonably refuse or fail to appear, the carrier is no longer liable for PIP benefits after that point — and failing to appear at two examinations creates a rebuttable presumption that the failure was unreasonable.

So the useful rule is not silence. It is knowing which request carries a legal consequence and which one is simply an adjuster building a file. Those examinations are also where a treatment gap or a prior injury gets raised, which is a reason to arrive prepared rather than surprised.

How does a claim work for a child, or after someone dies?

Florida does not give an injured child extra time. The widely repeated idea that a minor has until adulthood to sue is not what the statute says. Under Fla. Stat. § 95.051(1)(i) minority tolls the limitation period only during a period in which no parent, guardian or guardian ad litem exists, or the one who does exists has an interest adverse to the child or has been adjudicated incapable of suing.

For most injured children — a child with a parent who could bring the claim — nothing is tolled at all. The same two years runs from the date of the crash. A parent brings the claim on the child’s behalf, and a settlement for a minor may need court approval depending on its size.

Where a crash causes a death, the claim changes shape entirely. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.20 the action is brought by the personal representative of the estate, for the benefit of the survivors and the estate — not by each family member separately. The decedent’s own personal injury action does not survive; it abates, and the wrongful death claim replaces it. If someone has to be appointed personal representative first, that takes time the deadline does not give back.

Those are different claims with different parties and different proof, which is why a death in a crash is covered separately on the wrongful death page.

I do not live in Florida. Can I still bring a claim?

A crash on a Florida road is governed by Florida law whoever was driving and wherever they live. Miami-Dade and Hillsborough both carry heavy visitor traffic, and a large share of serious crashes involve someone who will be on a plane home within the week.

If you live out of state and were hurt here, the fourteen-day treatment rule and the two-year deadline apply to you, and the treatment you get at home still counts — it just has to start inside the window. Your own policy from another state may or may not include PIP, which is the first thing to check rather than assume.

If you were driving a rental, the rental company’s own liability is limited by statute, your personal policy usually extends to the rental, and the credit card used to book it may add a further layer. Where you declined every option at the counter, the available coverage may be narrower than you think.

If you were a visitor hit by a Florida driver, the PIP of the vehicle you were in or the vehicle that struck you may respond even though you own no car here. And a claim does not require you to stay in Florida: the records, the examinations and the negotiation are all handled from a distance as a matter of routine. Where travel is genuinely impossible, that is worth raising at the start, because a few procedural steps are harder to do remotely than others.

How much are my medical bills actually worth in a Florida claim?

Since March 2023 the number on your medical bill is not the number a jury is allowed to hear. Fla. Stat. § 768.0427 changed what evidence may be used to prove past and future medical damages, and it is the change that catches people out most often — because a $60,000 bill can turn into a far smaller provable figure.

Where a past bill has already been satisfied, the evidence is limited to the amount actually paid, whatever the source. A hospital that billed $40,000 and accepted $9,000 from your health insurer puts $9,000 in front of the jury, not $40,000.

Where a bill is still unpaid, what may be shown depends on your coverage. With health insurance, it is what that coverage would pay the provider. With no coverage at all, or with Medicare or Medicaid, the statute allows 120% of the Medicare rate for that service — or, where no Medicare rate exists, 170% of the state Medicaid rate.

The letter of protection has its own rule. If you have health coverage but treat under a letter of protection without submitting the charges, the evidence is still what your coverage would have paid. And if the provider sells the right to collect under that letter to someone else, what the buyer paid for it becomes admissible too.

None of this is a reason to go without care. It is a reason to understand, at the start, how you are paying for treatment — because that decision changes what the bills are worth at the end.

What if I cannot afford medical treatment after a crash?

Going without medical care is the worst of the available options, for your health and for the claim. A gap in treatment is read by an insurer as recovery, and the injury does not stop existing because nobody documented it.

Depending on the circumstances, the routes to treatment can include health insurance; PIP or medical-payments coverage on an auto policy while it lasts; a provider willing to defer payment; a letter of protection; a medical lien or a written payment agreement; a community health center or another lower-cost provider; a payment plan; or public and charitable resources where they apply.

None of these is free treatment. Most of them create an obligation to repay out of a settlement or judgment, and the terms belong in front of you before you sign. A lawyer cannot promise that a recovery will cover every bill.

This is also where the previous section matters. Treating under a letter of protection when you have health coverage you did not use changes what those charges are worth in evidence under § 768.0427. It is worth talking through before the treatment starts rather than after.

Can I make a claim without a driver’s license or legal status?

Neither one automatically ends your right to be compensated for an injury somebody else caused. The facts still decide the case: who was negligent, what the evidence shows, and what the applicable law says.

Driving without a license can create separate legal and insurance questions, and the other side may raise it to argue comparative fault or to challenge coverage. What it does not do is establish that you caused the crash. Those are different arguments and they are answered separately.

Immigration status can affect certain damages and documentation questions in some cases. It does not give anyone permission to injure you, and it does not by itself bar a personal injury claim. Nobody can promise that status will never be asked about or that an injury case can have no immigration consequence at all — anyone who tells you otherwise is overpromising. What you should do is be truthful, never use false documents, and get advice from a qualified immigration attorney where there is a real immigration question alongside the injury one.

Jose Dapena is a native Spanish speaker and the staff speak Spanish, so these questions can be asked and answered directly rather than through a family member. Complex legal and medical information is not something to put on a relative, and never on a child.

What actually happens after you hire a car accident lawyer?

Most Florida car accident claims never see a courtroom, but they all move through the same stages, and knowing which one you are in explains most of the waiting.

Investigation. The report, the photographs, the camera footage before it is overwritten, the witnesses while they are findable, and every declarations page in the household. Coverage is identified now, because it determines whether the claim is worth pursuing at all. Notice goes to your own uninsured motorist carrier at this stage, not later.

Treatment. The longest stage, and the one nobody can shorten. The claim cannot be valued until a doctor says you have reached maximum medical improvement and, where it applies, gives an opinion on permanence. Settling before that means pricing your own future care without knowing what it is.

Demand and negotiation. The records, bills, wage loss and medical opinions go to the carrier as a documented demand. The response is usually low, usually first, and usually accompanied by a reason. Several rounds are normal.

Suit, if it is needed. Filing starts a timetable rather than a trial. Written discovery, records, your deposition, a compulsory medical examination by a physician the defense selects, and expert opinions on both sides. Most cases then reach mediation, where a neutral mediator works between the rooms; a substantial share of Florida cases resolve there.

Trial. A small minority, and the only stage where someone other than the parties decides the outcome. A case that is properly prepared for trial is also the case that settles on better terms, which is why the preparation is not wasted when it never gets used.

How long does a Florida car accident case take?

Most Florida car accident claims settle without a lawsuit, and the timing is driven by your medical treatment rather than by the lawyer. A claim cannot be valued until a doctor says you have reached maximum medical improvement and, where relevant, assigns a permanent impairment rating.

Settling before that point means guessing at the cost of your own future care, and the guess is always in the carrier’s favor. The two-year deadline is the outer limit for starting a lawsuit, not a description of how long one takes — filing early in that window leaves options, filing late removes all but one.

Health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid generally have a right to be reimbursed out of a settlement. Negotiating those liens down is frequently worth as much to a client as the last increment of settlement, and it is work that happens at the end but has to be planned from the beginning.

How much of a car accident settlement do I actually keep?

The number on a settlement is not the number that reaches the client, and the gap is mostly medical reimbursement rather than fees. Anyone who paid for your treatment may have a right to be repaid out of the recovery.

Health insurers commonly assert a contractual right of reimbursement. Medicare and Medicaid have statutory rights, and a Medicare interest in particular has to be addressed properly rather than ignored, because the obligation does not disappear when the case closes. Hospitals and some providers in Florida can also assert their own claims, and a provider treating under a letter of protection is paid from the settlement at the end.

Those amounts are frequently negotiable, and reducing them is often worth more to a client than the last increment of the settlement itself. It is work that happens at the end of a case but has to be planned from the beginning — which provider is treating under what arrangement, and what will be owed when it resolves.

There is one trap worth naming on its own. Under Fla. Stat. § 627.727(6) you cannot simply accept the at-fault driver’s offer when you also have an underinsured motorist claim. Written notice of the proposed settlement goes to the UM carrier, which then has thirty days to authorize it or to preserve its subrogation rights by paying you the amount of that offer itself. Signing a release without going through that process can end a UM claim that was worth far more than the offer.

Why an attorney who worked for a PIP insurer reads the file differently

In 2002, before he represented a single injured person, Jose A. Dapena was in-house counsel for a Personal Injury Protection carrier. His job was to review claims on behalf of the insurance company and decide how it would respond to them.

That changes what gets looked for: how a gap in treatment is read, how a claim file is assembled from the inside to support a denial, which independent medical examination gets ordered and when, and which arguments a carrier reaches for when it intends to pay less than a claim is worth.

DAPENALAW represents injured people across Florida from offices in Miami, Homestead and Tampa. Whichever office a case comes through, the client deals with their attorney directly at every stage. Jose Dapena was born in Puerto Rico and speaks Spanish, and so does the staff, so a case can run in Spanish from the first call.