St. Cloud Auto Accident Lawyer
If you’ve been injured in an auto accident in Florida, you can recover a portion of your medical bills and lost wages through a claim for no-fault insurance benefits. If your injury was more severe or permanent, however, you’ll want to pursue a tort claim against the at-fault driver, so that you can recover a significantly higher amount of compensation to help you deal with your injuries. Draper Law Office can help you do this. Our St. Cloud auto accident lawyers have been helping car accident victims in St. Cloud and Osceola County for more than 35 years. See below for more information about Florida car accident laws, and call Draper Law Office at 407-846-0075 for a free, confidential consultation after a St. Cloud auto accident.
How Does Florida Auto Insurance Law Help Me After a St. Cloud Car Accident?
As the driver of a vehicle registered in the state of Florida, you are required to carry at least $10,000 in Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage. After a crash, you can file a claim for PIP benefits. PIP is “no-fault” coverage, so you can still get benefits even if the crash was your fault. PIP benefits aren’t very comprehensive, however. First of all, they only cover 80% of your medical expenses and 60% of your lost wages if you had to miss work due to your injury. So, even in the best situation, you can still find yourself significantly out-of-pocket for thousands of dollars in medical bills or lost income.
To make matters worse, the $10,000 of coverage only applies if you sought treatment for an emergency medical condition within 14 days of the crash. Otherwise, the most you will get from PIP benefits is $2,500.
No-fault insurance looks like its purpose is to ensure you get help with medical bills and other expenses after a crash, but its true purpose is to discourage lawsuits against at-fault drivers and their insurance companies. In a negligence lawsuit, not only could you recover 100% of your present and future medical bills and lost wages, but you could also receive valuable money damages for the pain and suffering you had to endure because of the accident. Florida law does not do away with these lawsuits altogether but limits them to situations where the accident victim suffered a severe or permanent injury, defined as one of the following:
- Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function
- Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement
- Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement
- Death
Draper Law Office can help determine whether you suffered a permanent injury, as defined above. If so, we can represent you in a negligence claim to help you recover a full measure of money damages. Doing this requires months of building a case that proves the other driver’s negligence caused the accident and establishing the significant amount of harm done. With a solid case in hand, we’ll be ready to negotiate a full and fair settlement with the insurance company or litigate your case in court if that’s what it takes to get a successful result for you. It takes a lot of work to build up a strong case for the best settlement, but that’s what we do at Draper Law Office. We’ve done it for countless auto accident victims in St. Cloud and Osceola County, and we are ready to help you too.
Skilled & Experienced St. Cloud Auto Accident Lawyers
For help recovering valuable compensation after an auto accident in St. Cloud, call the Osceola County car accident attorneys at Draper Law Office for a free consultation. We only charge a fee if we are successful on your behalf. Hablamos Español.
