Florida’s insurance system is built on no-fault. After a crash your own personal injury protection (PIP) coverage responds first, whoever was to blame, covering 80% of medical bills and 60% of lost wages up to $10,000. It pays nothing for pain and suffering.
There is a string attached to that coverage, and it is easy to miss. You generally have to see a doctor within 14 days of the crash to use your PIP benefits at all. Miss that window, and the coverage can be gone for good. Most Fort Myers drivers never hear about the rule until it is already too late to fix.
Serious injuries change the picture. A permanent injury, significant scarring, the loss of an important bodily function: any of these lets you step outside no-fault and bring a claim straight against the at-fault driver for what PIP never covers. Fault becomes the central fight at that point. Under Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule, say a jury values your claim at $140,000 but finds you 12% responsible. You recover $123,200. Cross 50%, and you recover nothing.
One deadline frames all of it. A 2023 change to Florida law cut the window to file an injury lawsuit from four years to two, measured from the date of the crash, not from the day the injury makes itself known.
