Melbourne Car Accident Lawyers

Almost every page on this subject tells you that Florida makes you prove a permanent injury before you can claim. True, and it is only half of the sentence. The permanent-injury requirement applies to compensation for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. It does not apply to your money.¹

Medical bills beyond what no-fault paid, the wages you lost, the earning capacity you may not get back, the cost of care you still need — those are claimable against an at-fault driver whether or not you ever prove permanency. People are talked out of perfectly good claims by being told they “don’t meet the threshold,” when what they actually have is a claim for everything except the pain.

When someone tells you that you do not have a claim, find out which half they mean.

Everyone knows Florida no-fault carries $10,000. Far fewer know that you only get the full amount if a qualifying practitioner records that you had an emergency medical condition. Without that finding, the ceiling drops to $2,500.²

Not a reduction. A quarter of what you were counting on, and one emergency room visit will pass it.

The determination has to come from the right kind of provider — a medical doctor, an osteopathic physician, a dentist, a physician assistant or an advanced practice registered nurse.² A chiropractor is not on that list. Someone treating only with a chiropractor, however good the treatment, may never get the finding made, and may not discover it until the benefits stop at $2,500.

So the practical instruction is short: see a doctor inside the first fourteen days, make sure a qualifying provider examines you, and ask whether an emergency medical condition has been documented. It is one question and it is worth $7,500.

The damage to your vehicle and the damage to you are two separate claims, usually handled by two separate people at the same insurer, and the vehicle one usually moves much faster.

Read what you are signing when the property damage is settled. A release drawn broadly enough can be argued to cover more than the car. Settle the vehicle, take the check, and check that the document says so in terms — particularly when the offer arrives quickly and the injury is still being investigated.

The same caution applies before you accept anything from the at-fault driver’s insurer while your own uninsured motorist coverage may still be in play. There is a notice step there that can void your own coverage if it is skipped.

Firms are reluctant to do this sum in public. Here it is.

Say you were hit at a junction, went to the emergency room, had eight weeks of physiotherapy, missed three weeks of work, and recovered fully. Bills of around $9,000, lost wages of $2,400. No permanent injury.

• No-fault pays 80 percent of the medical bills and 60 percent of the lost wages, up to the combined $10,000³ — so roughly $7,200 of the bills and $1,440 of the wages, or $8,640 in all. The cap is not reached, so about $1,360 of the coverage is still there if treatment continues.
• That leaves about $1,800 in bills and $960 in wages unpaid. Both are claimable against the at-fault driver.
• Pain and suffering is not claimable, because there was no permanent injury.
• So the realistic recovery is in the low thousands — before a contingency fee and case costs come out of it.

On numbers like these, a lawyer may not improve your position, and we will say so. A claim of this shape is often better handled by you, directly, with an itemised demand and copies of the bills. Where it changes is if the injury turns out not to be temporary, if the other driver was uninsured, if liability is disputed, or if the insurer starts behaving unreasonably. Those are the calls to make.

And if the honest answer is that your claim is small, that is not a reason to leave it. It is a reason to spend an afternoon on it rather than two years.

Within 14 days of the accident. If you do not get initial treatment inside that window, your no-fault medical coverage pays nothing at all — not a reduced amount, nothing.⁴

This is the single most common way people lose coverage they were entitled to. It happens to those who feel bruised rather than injured, and to those who are hurt badly enough that getting to a follow-up appointment is difficult in itself. Count the days from the accident and get seen.

Less than the headline suggests, and that “$10,000” figure carries a lot of weight.

It pays 80 percent of your medical bills and 60 percent of lost earnings, and the $10,000 is a combined ceiling for both — not $10,000 of medical treatment.⁵ The remaining 20 percent of the bills is still yours.

And the ceiling is only $10,000 if a doctor documents that you had an emergency medical condition. Without that finding it drops to $2,500.⁶ So ask at your first appointment whether the provider will record that determination, and keep the paperwork. It is a four-times difference and it costs you nothing to ask.

Everything beyond that — surgery, rehabilitation, longer-term lost earnings, and pain and suffering where you qualify — comes from a claim against the driver who caused it. What you can claim there follows different rules.

You will still be treated, and you have more options than you probably think. This is one of the most common reasons people delay getting care after an accident, and delaying is the one thing that reliably makes both the injury and the claim worse.

An emergency room has to treat you. Federal law requires hospital emergency departments to examine and stabilise anyone who arrives, regardless of insurance or ability to pay.⁷ An emergency room cannot turn you away at the door because you are unable to pay.

If a vehicle was involved, no-fault coverage does not care whether you have health insurance. It pays either way — and it may not be your own policy that pays. Work out whose coverage applies to you before assuming there is none.

Ask the hospital about financial assistance. Non-profit hospitals are required to have a written financial assistance policy, and many people who qualify never ask because they assume it is only for the destitute.⁸ Ask for it by name, in the billing office, and ask for the application. Ask as well whether you qualify for Medicaid, which can sometimes cover treatment you have already received.

Some doctors will treat you now and be paid later. This is done through a letter of protection — a written promise that the doctor will be paid out of your settlement rather than by you at the time. It is a normal arrangement and it makes treatment possible for people who would otherwise go without.

But it is not free, and you should understand the trade before you agree to it. A provider treating on a letter of protection generally bills at full rates rather than the discounted rate an insurer would have negotiated, and every dollar of it comes out of your settlement at the end. It reduces what reaches you.

So the honest advice runs against our own convenience: if you have any way to run treatment through health insurance, no-fault coverage, or a hospital financial assistance programme, use it first. Keep the letter of protection for treatment you cannot get any other way. We would rather you keep more of the settlement than have a tidier file.

It depends entirely on which insurer is calling, and “never talk to insurers” is bad advice that can cost you your coverage.

Your own no-fault insurer can require your cooperation. It can ask you to give a statement under oath and to be examined by a doctor it chooses, and if you refuse or simply do not turn up it can stop paying your medical bills.⁹ These are obligations under a policy you bought.

The other driver’s insurer is in a different position. A recorded statement to them is voluntary. You are not required to give one, and there is rarely a reason to give one early.

So the useful question when the phone rings is not whether to talk, but whose policy they are calling about. Ask that first.

No. A bill to repeal it passed the Legislature in 2021 and was vetoed by the Governor that June.¹⁰ Similar bills have been filed since without passing. The state’s no-fault system is still in force, and everything above still applies.

The rumour persists because the repeal came close, and a lot of articles written at the time were never updated.

There is an order to it, and you work down the list.¹¹

• Own a vehicle registered in this state? Your own policy pays — even if you were walking or cycling at the time.
• No vehicle, but you live with a relative who has one? Their policy pays.
• Neither? The policy on the vehicle that struck you pays.

This is why a pedestrian or a cyclist struck by a car is usually inside the no-fault system without ever having thought of themselves as being in it. It is also why the answer for a visitor from out of state, or someone whose household has no car at all, is different from the answer for their neighbor.

One exception catches people out: if a motorcycle struck you, none of this applies. Motorcycles are not required to carry this coverage at all.¹²

This happens more often than people assume, because state law does not require drivers to carry any coverage for injuries they cause. The law requires no-fault medical coverage for the driver themselves, and property damage cover for your car. Cover for your injuries is optional.¹³

So a driver can be entirely at fault, fully licensed, fully legal — and have nothing available to pay for your surgery. In a great many serious cases the money does not come from the person who caused it. It comes from your own policy, through uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.¹⁴

Which makes the most useful thing you can do tonight very simple: find your policy’s declarations page and look for uninsured motorist coverage. It tells you whether you have it, how much, and whether it is “stacked” — which multiplies it across the vehicles on your policy.

Usually yes. Uninsured motorist coverage follows the person, not the vehicle. The policy on the car sitting in your driveway can cover you while you are a passenger in someone else’s car, riding a bicycle, or walking across a car park.

People routinely do not claim on coverage they are paying for, because it did not occur to them that a policy on a car they were nowhere near could apply. It often does.

Not without telling your own insurer first, and this one is unforgiving. Before you settle with the at-fault driver’s insurer, your uninsured motorist carrier has to be notified and given the chance to respond.¹⁵ Signing a release without doing that can end the claim against your own policy altogether.

It is a trap precisely because the first offer often looks like good news. A quick check from the other side, taken at the wrong moment, can cost far more than it pays.

Accident reports here are sealed to the public for 60 days — but that restriction does not apply to you. The people involved, their attorneys and their insurers can get a copy immediately.¹⁶

Reports come from the state’s online report portal for $10 plus a $2 service fee. Allow about ten days after the accident for yours to appear, and download it within 48 hours of buying it or you pay again. You will be asked to sign a short sworn statement first, confirming you will not use the report to solicit business — that is a condition of getting it, and misusing the information in it is a felony.¹⁷

Then filing the report is your job, and there is a deadline on it. Where an accident caused property damage but did not require an officer, the driver has to file a written report within 10 days.¹⁸ The form is HSMV 90011S, and you can email it to the state or post it to Tallahassee.

This matters more than it sounds. Without it there may be no official record connecting the other driver to the accident at all — which becomes their word against yours when you make a claim months later.

An officer files instead of you when there was a death, an injury or any complaint of pain, a DUI or a driver leaving the scene, a vehicle that had to be towed, or a commercial vehicle involved.¹⁹

It depends on exactly where you were hit, and it decides who you buy the report from.

• Inside Melbourne city limits — Melbourne Police Department
• Unincorporated Brevard County — Brevard County Sheriff’s Office
• US-1, US-192 and I-95 — usually the Florida Highway Patrol

If you are not sure which side of a city line you were on, the responding officer’s agency is printed on the information slip you were handed at the scene.

It is the trade-off built into the state’s no-fault system. You get medical coverage regardless of who caused it; in exchange, the right to claim for pain and suffering is limited to more serious injuries. If a court decides you cannot show evidence of one, that part of your claim is dismissed.²⁰

Practically, this is why the wording in your medical records matters so much. A doctor recording a permanent injury is often the single most valuable line in the file.

It also does not always apply. The rule turns on who hit you, not on your own insurance. It does not apply if the driver who hit you was uninsured, if a taxi was involved, or if you were struck by a motorcycle.²¹ It does apply to commercial trucks. If someone has told you flatly that you must prove permanency, find out which of these you are in.

1. Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2) — the permanent-injury threshold applies to damages for pain, suffering, mental anguish and inconvenience; economic damages are not subject to it
2. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)3.–4. — personal injury protection limited to $2,500 unless a physician licensed under chapter 458 or 459, a dentist licensed under chapter 466, a physician assistant or an advanced practice registered nurse has determined that the claimant had an emergency medical condition
3. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)–(b) — 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost income, subject to a combined $10,000 limit
4. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a) — initial services within 14 days
5. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a), (1)(b) — 80 percent of medical expenses, 60 percent of lost income, $10,000 combined
6. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)4 — $2,500 limit absent an emergency medical condition determination
7. 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd (EMTALA) — emergency medical screening and stabilisation regardless of ability to pay
8. 26 U.S.C. § 501(r)(4) — written financial assistance policy required of tax-exempt hospitals
9. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(6)(b), (7) — examination under oath and medical examination; consequences of non-compliance
10. SB 54 (2021) — PIP repeal passed and vetoed 30 June 2021
11. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(4)(e) — order of priority for personal injury protection benefits
12. Fla. Stat. § 627.732(3) — “motor vehicle” defined as four or more wheels
13. Fla. Stat. §§ 627.733(1), 324.022 — personal injury protection and property damage liability required; bodily injury liability not required for ordinary private passenger vehicles
14. Fla. Stat. § 627.727 — uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage
15. Fla. Stat. § 627.727(6) — notice to the uninsured motorist insurer before settling with the liability carrier
16. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(a)–(b) — 60-day confidentiality, and immediate access for parties, their attorneys and insurers
17. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(d), (3)(d) — sworn statement as a condition of access; misuse a third-degree felony
18. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e) — driver self-report within 10 days where no law enforcement report is required
19. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(a) — when a law enforcement officer must file the report
20. Fla. Stat. § 627.737(2)–(3) — permanent-injury threshold for non-economic damages, and dismissal where it is not met
21. Fla. Stat. §§ 627.732(3), 627.733(1)(b), 627.733(4) — four-wheel definition; taxicab exemption; loss of immunity where the owner carried no required security