Who Pays After a Florida Crash, Layer by Layer
After a serious crash the question is rarely who was at fault. It is who has enough coverage to pay for what happened.
Read MoreFlorida Injury Law Resources
Straight answers to the questions injured people actually ask, with the statute behind each one.
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The Legal Process for Catastrophic Injuries in Florida
A 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 MoreSix Things About Florida Injury Law That Are Commonly Published Wrong
Everything 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| PIP and no-fault | Not repealed.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.
Useful Outside Sources
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.
The law itself
- The Florida Statutes. The full text, by chapter and year. Worth knowing that the year in the URL matters: HB 837 renumbered the limitations statute in 2023, so an older edition of § 95.11 does not say what the current one says.
Your crash report, and the crash data
- FLHSMV crash report requests. How to obtain the official report on your own crash. Reports are restricted for 60 days after the crash to the people involved and their representatives.
- FLHSMV crash dashboard. The state’s own crash statistics by county and year. Every crash figure quoted on this site comes from here or from the annual report behind it, with the year and status named.
Insurance companies
- Florida Department of Financial Services, consumer services. Where to file a complaint about an insurer, and where to ask for help with a claim that is being handled badly. It is free and it creates a record.
- Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. Company lookup, financial condition, and the filings behind the policy forms an insurer uses.
Where a case is actually heard
- Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County.
- Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County, covering Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach.
- Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, covering West Palm Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton.
- Florida State Courts System, for self-help resources and how the court structure fits together.
Checking a lawyer, including this one
- The Florida Bar member directory. Confirms that anyone you are speaking to is licensed and in good standing, and shows any disciplinary history. Brian’s record is Florida Bar number 105885.
What a serious injury costs
- National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. The lifetime cost figures used across this site come from its Facts and Figures table, which is restated every March and is expressed in the prior year’s dollars. It excludes lost earnings, which are counted separately.
If You Need an Answer About Your Own Case
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.
Reach Brian Elstein, Miami Personal Injury Lawyer
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