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Every crash figure on this page carries the year it covers, what it counts, and the agency that published it. Brian Elstein read these numbers for insurance companies before he began representing injured people, and a figure without its source is the first thing a carrier will use against the person who repeated it.
Read MoreFlorida makes a dog owner liable for a bite whether or not the dog had ever bitten anyone before. Brian Elstein spent years defending injury claims for insurance companies before he began bringing them, and this page sets out what the statute gives you, alongside the three things that can take it back.
Read MoreAfter a serious crash the question is rarely who was at fault. It is who has enough coverage to pay for what happened.
Read MoreA catastrophic injury changes the question a family is asking. Within a week or two it stops being who was at fault and becomes who is going to…
Read MoreEverything in this section carries the statute or the source behind it, because on the points below a striking number of Florida law firm pages, insurance company explainers and AI-generated summaries are wrong. Not vague, wrong. Each one is checkable against the statute in under a minute.
| The point | What is correct | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| The deadline to file | Two years for most negligence claims, not four. HB 837 shortened it for causes of action accruing on or after 24 March 2023, and renumbered the statute at the same time | § 95.11(5)(a). A source citing the older subsection is pointing at a provision that no longer says what it once did |
| Product liability | Four years, with a twelve-year repose. It is the exception, so applying the two-year rule to it is as wrong as applying four years to everything else | § 95.11(3)(d), repose § 95.031(2)(b) |
| PIP and no-fault | Not repealed. The 2026 repeal bills died in committee and the session adjourned sine die on 13 March 2026. The $10,000 limit, the 80 percent medical and 60 percent wage split, the $2,500 cap without an emergency medical condition finding, and the 14-day treatment deadline all still apply | § 627.736 |
| Being partly at fault | A person found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing. At exactly 50 percent they still recover, reduced by half. Copy that requires a plaintiff to be under half responsible states the rule backwards, and Florida is modified rather than pure comparative negligence | § 768.81 |
| Who files a wrongful death claim | The personal representative of the estate, not the spouse, children or parents, who are beneficiaries rather than filers | § 768.20, survivors defined at § 768.18(1) |
| Rideshare coverage | The $1 million tier applies during a prearranged ride and is a combined limit for death, bodily injury and property damage together. No Florida statute provides $1 million in uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage | § 627.748(7)(c), which requires only coverage “as required by s. 627.727” |
None of that is a technicality. Somebody who reads the wrong deadline and waits three years loses their claim outright, and no argument about the merits gets made after that.
These are primary sources rather than summaries of them, and every one is an official state or federal body. If something on this site disagrees with one of these, the source below wins. None of them is a law firm page, including ours.
A resource page can explain the rules. It cannot read your policy, and the policy is where most of the answer lives.
If you want somebody to look at yours, there is no fee to talk and no fee unless there is a recovery. Call (305) 299-2835 or tell us what happened, and it will be reviewed by the lawyer who used to defend these claims. If you are working out what kind of claim you have, every practice area the firm handles is the place to start. If you want to see what carriers have offered on real matters against what was eventually recovered, that is published too: what carriers offered against what was recovered.
The consultation is free and there is no fee unless we win. Tell Brian what happened and find out what your case is really worth.
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