Southwest Florida Accident Attorney

What Kind of Coverage Do I Have?

Because clients who have suffered serious personal injury often ask to explain the basics of Florida auto insurance coverage, I outline the basics for you here, including bodily injury coverage, PIP, UM, and med pay.

Florida law does not require you to buy any insurance except PIP and PDL, but other insurance products can offer increased protection. In fact, to protect their interest in your vehicle, your lender can require you to carry comprehensive and collision coverage until your loan is paid off. The most common types of additional insurance include:

Bodily Injury Liability

This coverage pays for death or serious and permanent injury to others when you are legally liable for an accident involving your automobile. Your insurance company will pay for injuries up to the limits of your policy and provide legal representation if you get sued. Your policy may also cover others who drive your automobile with your permission, and it may cover you or others named in the policy if operating someone else’s vehicle.

Collision

This coverage pays for repair or replacement of your vehicle if it collides with another vehicle, flips over or crashes into an object, regardless of who causes the accident. It does not cover injuries to people or damage to property other than your covered automobile.

Comprehensive

This coverage pays for losses from incidents other than a collision, such as fire, theft, windstorm, vandalism or flood. It also covers damages caused by falling objects or hitting an animal.

Your insurance company will not charge you a deductible for windshield replacement under comprehensive coverage. Florida law requires this waiver to encourage drivers to replace cracked or broken windshields immediately to avoid a major driving hazard.

Uninsured Motorist | Underinsured Motorist | UM

This coverage pays for bodily injuries to you, your family members and any other person occupying your covered automobile, should they be caused by the negligence of an uninsured or underinsured motorist. The following are examples in which UM coverage may apply:

* If the at-fault party has no liability insurance
* If the at-fault party has inadequate liability coverage or
* If injuries result from a hit-and-run vehicle

UM pays for medical expenses and lost wages (after your PIP coverage is exhausted) that you and your passengers may incur. This coverage also includes payment for pain and suffering if you have a permanent injury or death. Uninsured motorist insurance comes in stackable and nonstackable coverage. Companies must offer stackable coverage, but may or may not offer a nonstackable option.

Stackable UM

Stackable coverage means that you may combine the coverage limits for each automobile insured under your policy. For example, you may insure three autos and obtain stackable coverage with limits of $10,000 per person and $20,000 per accident for each auto (known as 10/20 limits).

Your stackable, or combined, coverage will total $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident (see example). If these policies were nonstackable, then the limit of coverage for each vehicle would be $10,000 per person and $20,000 per accident. Insurance companies may offer nonstackable coverage at a reduced cost, since they will only pay the maximum amount allowed for one insured automobile.

Example:

Three automobiles insured with stackable coverage:

$10,000 x 3 = $30,000 per person

$20,000 x 3 = $60,000 per accident

Personal Injury Protection | PIP

Personal Injury Protection (PIP) is mandatory no-fault insurance in Florida.  It provides a total of $10,000.00 in primary coverage for medical bills and lost wages related to a car accident.

This means that, after a vehicle collision, regardless of fault, your PIP insurance pays your 80% of each medical bill related to the crash up to the $10,000 limit, including prescriptions and mileage reimbursement for travel to/from medical providers.  Similarly, PIP pays you 60% of your lost wages, up to the single PIP coverage limit of $10,000.

PIP is primary insurance in auto accidents.  Health insurance is secondary.

Let’s consider a serious crash example.  The hospital bill is $20,000.  PIP pays the first $10,000 (and is exhausted), and then health insurance kicks in and provides coverage for the remainder of the bill.  If there is no health insurance, then that hospital bill remains owed by the patient and may go to collections.  Under this example, because PIP was exhausted by the hospital bill, there is no PIP money available for lost wages.

Medical Payments | MedPay

This coverage pays for medical expenses for accidental injury up to the limit of your policy. It covers your medical expenses, plus those of your family members or passengers, regardless of fault (unlike bodily injury liability insurance). It applies whether you are in your automobile or someone else’s, or if you are hit by an automobile while walking or bicycling.

Since PIP covers only 80 percent of medical expenses, medical payments insurance could cover the remaining 20 percent, and possibly the PIP deductible, depending on the policy provisions. Medical payments will also cover the amount in excess of the PIP limit, up to the limit specified in the policy.

In the event of a auto accident injury settlement, however, MedPay may have to be paid back whatever it paid on your behalf.

Towing

You may add towing and road service to your auto insurance. But your insurance company may cancel your policy for too many towing claims, even if you have no accidents.

Rental Reimbursement

You may receive reimbursement for auto rental up to a specified limit, which is contained in your policy. It applies if you get into an accident with your own automobile and can no longer drive it.

If another driver causes an accident, the at fault party’s liability coverage may reimburse you for renting a vehicle similar to your own. However, the other party’s insurance company might have a maximum amount per day that it will pay. In most cases you must buy collision coverage before you can buy rental reimbursement.

Contact Us If You Have Been in an Auto Accident

If you have been injured in an auto accident, motorcycle accident, or trucking accident, then contact an experienced personal injury lawyer at the Harris Law Firm, P.A. today to review your circumstances.