Florida law requires drivers to have at least $10,000 in personal injury protection (PIP) and $10,000 in property damage liability (PDL), which pays for damages you cause with your car to the other parties’ automobile and/or property. Nearly everyone should have substantially more than these minimum amounts of insurance including medical payment coverage and enhanced property liability and many of the items described below.
Personal Injury Protection (PIP)
Personal Injury Protection (PIP) is a no-fault type of coverage that pays you and covered family members for certain accident-related medical expenses regardless of who caused the accident. You may be eligible for up to $10,000 worth of medical payments.
Basic PIP covers these items, up to the dollar limits of your coverage:
- 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses.
- 60 percent of lost wages and replacement services, such as childcare, home or even yard cleaning.
- $5,000 for death benefits.
For higher premiums, you can purchase medical payment coverage and lower or eliminate deductible. Different insurers may offer different PIP packages, so check with your agents or do some comparison shopping on your own. Deductibles are an important element of PIP coverage. Florida insurers are required to offer PIP deductibles of $0, $250, $500, $1,000, and $2,000 (they may offer more choices at their discretion).
Optional additional insurance
We highly recommend additional PIP and PDL coverage, substantial bodily injury coverage, collision and comprehensive coverage, and uninsured/underinsured motorists (UM/UIM) coverage for most drivers. In Florida, you can get UM/UIM coverage in what are called “stackable” and “non-stackable” forms.
Stackable coverage means the UM coverage limits for each car covered on your policy can be added together. So, if you insure three cars and have stackable UM of $10,000 per person/ $20,000 per accident and one of these vehicles were involved in an accident, the total UM motorist coverage would be $30,000 per person/$60,000 per accident.
Non-stackable coverage is a cheaper form of protection that limits coverage to the actual individual vehicle limits. Please note that insurers are not required to offer non-stackable coverage.
Although Florida has no-fault PIP, you can get more complete coverage by paying additional amounts for medical payment coverage. A benefit of medical payment coverage would be that it could be the 20 percent of medical expenses not covered by PIP.
Filing PIP claims with your insurer
If you file a claim under the PIP portion of your coverage, your insurer must provide you with a notice of your rights, including available benefits, exclusions and limitations of PIP coverage plus information about when payments are due. Once the insurer has received written notification of PIP losses the company must pay you or your medical provider within 30 days or you are entitled to earn 10 percent interest on the amount of your loss until it is paid. The Schiller Kessler Group has handled numerous claims of Bad Faith against insurance companies for failure to pay benefits in full or in a timely manner.
The Schiller Kessler Group provides aggressive and effective legal representation to our clients with the highest standards of excellence, compassion and integrity. We always provide personalized attention and deliver prompt communication so that our clients always know where their case stands. Contact our offices anytime to schedule a free consultation.