Hurt in a Car Crash in Florida? Here Is What to Do Next

How much compensation do you get from a car crash?

How Much Compensation Do You Get From a Car Crash?

How much can you get from a car crash? There is no single answer. Your compensation depends on three main things:

• How badly you were hurt
• Who was at fault
• How much insurance coverage is available

Economic damages are costs you can add up. Examples include medical bills, lost wages, and property damage. These costs may be fairly easy to calculate.

Non-economic damages are harder to measure. They include pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. In some cases, they can make up a larger share of a settlement. Every claim depends on its own facts. The severity of your injury is one key factor.

What Types of Damages Can You Recover?

In a Florida car crash claim, damages fall into two main groups: economic and non-economic.

Economic damages are measurable costs caused directly by the crash. They include:

• Medical bills (emergency care, surgery, hospital stays, rehabilitation, and therapy)
• Lost wages (income you missed while you recovered)
• Future medical care (ongoing treatment, medicine, equipment, and home care)
• Lost earning capacity (if your injury keeps you from working at your previous level)
• Property damage (repair or replacement of your vehicle)
• Transportation costs (a rental car, rideshare, or changes to a vehicle for your disability)

Non-economic damages are harder to measure. They are just as real. They include:

• Pain and suffering (physical pain and emotional distress from the injury)
• Loss of enjoyment of life (being unable to do things you used to do)
• Loss of consortium (harm to your relationship with a spouse or family member)
• Emotional distress and worry about the future

Florida limits pain-and-suffering damages in car crash lawsuits. But only if your injury meets certain conditions.

• A significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function
• A permanent injury, within a reasonable degree of medical probability (other than scarring or disfigurement)
• Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement
• Death

Catastrophic injuries include spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, amputations, and severe burns. In these cases, non-economic damages may be larger than economic damages. This can happen when the injury is permanent. It can also happen when the injury changes your whole life.

How Does Injury Severity Affect Compensation?

A minor fender-bender with soft-tissue injuries may be less serious than a crash that causes lasting harm. A serious injury may need surgery and months of rehabilitation. That can mean a much longer recovery.

A catastrophic injury can cause permanent paralysis, brain damage, or amputation. These injuries can carry large lifetime costs.

The difference comes down to lifetime impact.

• A person who fully recovers from a broken arm may return to work within weeks.
• A person with a spinal cord injury may need a lifetime of medical care, adaptive equipment, and home changes. That person may also lose earning potential.

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation reports that the average lifetime cost of care for a person with paraplegia (paralysis of the lower body) is about $1.3 million. For quadriplegia (paralysis of all four limbs), the figure is more than $4.7 million.

Courts and insurance companies consider these documented costs when they calculate compensation.

What Role Does Fault Play?

Florida uses comparative fault rules. This means fault can be shared among the people involved. Fla. Stat. § 768.81 is the law that covers comparative fault.

Fault can affect your claim, so evidence matters. The following can all shape the outcome:

• Police reports
• Witness statements
• Traffic-camera footage
• Accident reconstruction (a detailed analysis of how the crash happened)

How Do Insurance Policy Limits Affect What You Recover?

Florida requires owners of registered vehicles to carry insurance. This is called security. Personal injury protection (PIP) benefits are covered in Fla. Stat. § 627.736.

Serious injuries can produce losses that are larger than an insurance policy’s coverage, so it helps to talk with a lawyer early about every possible source of recovery in your situation. Collecting from an individual can be hard.

If the at-fault driver has no insurance or not enough coverage, your own uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage may help. This applies only if you have it.

Commercial vehicles, such as trucks, delivery vans, and rideshare cars, may carry different liability coverage than personal vehicles. This is one reason a crash with a commercial vehicle can raise different insurance questions.

What About Catastrophic Injuries?

Catastrophic injuries from car crashes can cause lifelong disability. They can also lead to a lifelong need for medical care. Examples include spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, amputations, severe burns, and other permanent impairments. Because of this, they are handled differently.

In the catastrophic-injury cases this firm handles, compensation may include:

• Lifetime medical care and rehabilitation
• Adaptive equipment (wheelchairs, mobility aids, and home changes)
• Home and vehicle modifications for a disability
• Ongoing therapy and mental-health treatment
• Loss of earning capacity over a lifetime
• Non-economic damages for pain, suffering, mental anguish, and inconvenience, but only if the injury consists in whole or in part of a significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability (other than scarring or disfigurement), significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, or death

A spinal cord injury that causes paraplegia or quadriplegia can bring lifetime costs. These costs are large and well documented.

How Long Do You Have to File a Claim?

Time matters. Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a), a negligence lawsuit must generally be filed within two years.

If you miss this deadline, you may lose your right to recover. Deadlines can have exceptions. Contact this firm promptly.

Delay can happen for many reasons. You may be focused on recovery. You may be dealing with insurance. You may be hoping the other side will settle. But delay can hurt your claim:

• Witnesses may move away.
• Memories may fade.
• Evidence can be lost.

Filing within the two-year window protects your rights. It also gives you leverage in settlement talks.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you or a family member suffered a serious or catastrophic injury in a car crash, our team can help you understand what comes next. We can walk you through what you might recover, how long the process can take, and whether you may have a claim.

Our free first consultation is confidential and carries no obligation to continue. Contacting us is a way to talk about what happened and explore your options.

Get a free case evaluation