Florida No-Fault Auto Insurance
Automobile insurance laws in Florida require the owner of a vehicle to have a certain amount of personal injury protection. Personal injury protection provides compensation to you in the event you are in an accident. The minimum amount of personal injury coverage required by law is $10,000, but you can purchase higher amounts of insurance that will cover medical, surgical, funeral, and disability benefits regardless of fault. This is known as no-fault insurance.
In most states, auto insurance functions under a traditional fault-based system. Insurance companies make payments based on each person’s degree of fault in a particular motor vehicle accident. However, long and costly court battles are often required to determine who is at fault in many accidents. In an attempt to reduce this problem, 13 states (Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Colorado) have adopted no-fault insurance laws – also called “personal injury protection” or PIP. Under Florida’s no-fault insurance statute, if you are hurt in an accident, your insurance will automatically pay 80% of your reasonable medical expenses related to injuries sustained in the accident and 60% of your lost earnings, subject to the limits of the no-fault policy and any applicable deductible, regardless of who caused the accident.
If you are killed in a car accident, no-fault pays survivor’s benefits, which is income which you would have provided to your family if you had survived the accident. These benefits are usually limited to a maximum amount per month for a set time period. Your policy will pay these benefits no matter where in the United States the accident takes place. Your policy will not pay benefits if you are the owner or registrant of an uninsured motor vehicle that was involved in an accident. Therefore, it is important that you have insurance coverage on all vehicles that you own.
If you are a family member, no-fault insurance also covers relatives in your household who do not have their own no-fault policy. Personal injury protection benefits can be paid by your policy even if family members are either passengers in another person’s car or pedestrians when they are hurt. If you damage someone else’s property, no-fault will pay up to a specified limit for damages your car causes to another person’s tangible property, such as buildings, trees, and road signs and will pay to repair or replace another person’s vehicle, but only if the vehicle was properly parked.
Many people mistakenly believe that if they meet the minimum insurance requirements under Florida law, then they have full coverage. As the descriptions of the various categories of automobile insurance below indicate, the Florida requirements constitute a very bare minimum and rarely adequately protect persons involved in automobile accidents. The statutory minimum alone does not constitute full coverage. Essential coverage including bodily injury coverage, uninsured motorist coverage, and collision are not required by Florida law.
Limits to No-Fault Insurance
No-fault insurance carries several limits that all drivers should be aware of. No-fault insurance generally does not pay for the following:
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Repairs to your vehicle after an accident no matter who was at fault.
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Repairs to another person’s vehicle after an accident, no matter who was at fault.
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Costs for replacement of your vehicle in the event that it is stolen.
In exchange for a guaranteed payment, you must give up some of your rights to sue the other driver involved in the accident. You may be allowed to sue for non-economic damages if the amount of these damages exceeds a specified tort threshold. Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania have verbal thresholds. The other eight states use a monetary threshold: Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Utah. Three states have a “choice” no-fault law. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, motorists may reject the lawsuit threshold and retain the right to sue for any auto-related injury.
In order to file suit against the driver at fault, Florida’s no-fault insurance law requires that you must show that you sustained a “serious” injury. Exactly when a serious injury is present is a legal-medical question, but the party must show a sustained permanent injury, significant scarring or disfigurement, or death before a valid claim can be made for quality-of-life damages such as pain and suffering.
When our team of experienced attorneys represents a person who is injured in an accident, one of the first things we do is investigate all possible insurance coverage that is applicable. There are two categories of auto insurance – first-party coverage and third-party coverage. First-party coverage covers you and your property (such as medical expenses, damage to your vehicle, and the insurance company’s duty to defend you in the event that you are sued as the result of your operation of a vehicle). Third-party coverage covers your responsibility to pay for injury caused to other people (and vice versa), whether in your vehicle, or another vehicle involved in the accident. The coverage (and its exclusions) is set forth in your insurance policy. In exchange for the payment of a premium, the insurance company promises to provide compensation in the event of certain occurrences. Though a full recitation of insurance coverage and laws would occupy several large text volumes, the following is a brief synopsis of the most typical coverage and issues.
Personal Injury Protection (PIP)
In addition to liability insurance, Florida requires all drivers to have personal injury protection (PIP) coverage. Personal injury coverage is not health insurance, and it is not designed to pay for your medical bills as they are incurred. It is designed for a one-time settlement or payment for all of your damages. In Florida, your policy must cover 80% of all reasonable expenses for medically necessary medical, surgical, X-ray, dental, and rehabilitative services, including prosthetic devices, and medically necessary ambulance, hospital, and nursing services. The personal injury insurance minimum required by law in Florida is $10,000 for bodily injury or death of one person in any one accident. Lawsuits in Florida must be filed against the negligent driver and may not also name the insurance carrier as a defendant. In fact, the jury is not allowed to know that there is insurance coverage available on the defendant. If the jury renders a verdict in excess of the defendant’s liability policy limit, the defendant is then personally liable out of his or her own assets for the additional amount.
Medical Payments (Med-Pay) Coverage
When purchasing automobile insurance for yourself, you may obtain an optional type of coverage called medical payments coverage. Medical payments coverage, or med-pay, pays accident-related medical expenses not covered by personal injury protection. This coverage is available to the insured driver (the individual who holds the policy which includes med-pay coverage) and any passengers in the insured’s vehicle for injuries sustained, regardless of the fault of the driver. It is important to note that the insurance policy of the negligent party does not pay med-pay or PIP benefits to an injured plaintiff. These benefits are limited to the driver or passengers in the insured vehicle, regardless of fault. The plaintiff must look to his or her own insurance policy or the policy on the vehicle in which he was a passenger for med-pay or PIP benefits.
Bodily Injury Coverage
If you are injured by the negligence of a defendant, we will make a claim under the bodily injury liability coverage of the negligent defendant’s insurance policy. Bodily injury liability coverage covers a driver’s legal liability for the injury or death that he or she, or any permitted user, may cause with the covered vehicle. When you are injured in a car accident and the person at fault is either the driver of the other vehicle or the driver of the car in which you are a passenger, you may file a bodily injury claim with that driver’s insurance company. In most liability policies, bodily injury means sickness, disease, injury, and death arising from sickness, disease, or injury.
Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Benefits
Another type of voluntary coverage you can (and should) purchase is uninsured/underinsured motorist benefits. This coverage protects you against a negligent defendant who does not have liability insurance coverage or has minimum coverage that is inadequate to fully compensate you for your injuries. If you are involved in an accident with an uninsured but negligent individual, we would make a claim for you under your own uninsured motorist policy. Your own insurance carrier would then have to pay any judgment which may be rendered, up to the limits of the policy which you purchased.
Uninsured motorist coverage (UM) covers bodily injuries to you or your passenger caused by an uninsured driver. The minimum UM limit in Florida is $20,000 maximum payment for one person’s injuries in one accident and $40,000 maximum payment for all bodily injuries in one accident. Underinsured motorist coverage (UIM) pays for your bodily injuries, including medical expenses, lost wages, or other damages and property damage caused by another driver without adequate insurance. UIM coverage usually pays the difference between the minimum amount you select and the underinsured motorist’s coverage limits.
If the person who caused the accident has liability insurance but the policy limit of his or her liability insurance is less than the uninsured motorist coverage of your policy, we can make an additional claim under your own policy for what is called underinsured motorist benefits, in the event that your damages exceed the limits of the other party’s liability coverage. A complicated body of case law has evolved dealing with this type of benefit, and the experience of an attorney familiar with these issues is important in order to obtain the maximum amount of recovery for you.
Collision Coverage
Collision coverage is a type of voluntary coverage you can purchase which provides for the repair or replacement of your own vehicle after an accident, regardless of whether or not you are at fault. This is different than property liability insurance coverage discussed above. An innocent victim of an accident may present a claim for the property damage under his or her own collision coverage or under the negligent defendant’s property damage liability insurance coverage. Your own collision coverage normally includes a deductible, whereas property damage liability insurance coverage does not. In an automobile accident case, after a claim has been paid under collision coverage, the insurance carrier who paid the claim may proceed against the property damage liability insurance carrier for the negligent defendant to recover the amount paid out. This process is called subrogation, and does not affect your recover.
The Automobile Accident information offered by greater Tampa Bay area Automobile Accident Lawyers and contained herein, regarding Automobile Accident statutes and Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough County, Florida Automobile Accident claimants' rights, is general in scope. No greater Tampa Bay area Auto Accident attorney / client relationship with our greater Tampa Bay area Automobile Accident attorneys is hereby formed nor is the information herein intended as formal legal advice. See terms of use. Please contact Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough County Automobile Accident Lawyers at 1-800-4-INJURY regarding your specific inquiry if you are injured in Dade City, City of New Port Richey, City of Port Richey, City of San Antonio, Town of St. Leo, Zephyrhills, Bayonet Point, Beacon Square, Blanton, Crystal Springs, Dade City North, Elfers, Holiday, Hudson, Jasmine Estates, Lacoochee, Land O' Lakes, New Port Richey East, Odessa, Saint Joseph, Shady Hills, Trinity, Wesley Chapel, Wesley Chapel South, Zephyrhills North, Zephyrhills South, Zephyrhills West, Belleair, Belleair Beach, Belleair Bluffs, Belleair Shore, Clearwater, Dunedin, Gulfport, Indian Rocks Beach, Indian Shores, Kenneth City, Largo, Madeira Beach, North Redington Beach, Oldsmar, Pinellas Park, Redington Beach, Redington Shores, Safety Harbor, Seminole, South Pasadena, Pete Beach, St. Petersburg, Tarpon Springs and Treasure Island, Florida. |
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