Dealing With Insurance Companies After an Accident

An adjuster is friendly, responsive, and paid to control what a claim costs. Nothing about that is improper. It simply means the person calling within days of a crash is not working toward the same outcome you are.

How Florida No-Fault Works

Your own policy pays first. Under section 627.736, Florida Statutes, every Florida policy must carry at least $10,000 in personal injury protection, which pays regardless of who caused the crash.

The coverage is narrower than people expect.

• It pays 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost gross wages, leaving the remainder unpaid.
• All benefits, including a $5,000 death benefit, draw from the same $10,000 limit.
• Initial treatment must occur within 14 days of the crash. Miss that window and medical benefits are denied entirely, regardless of the reason.
• Without certification of an emergency medical condition by a qualifying provider, the medical limit drops from $10,000 to $2,500.

Serious injuries exhaust that coverage quickly, which is why the claim against the at-fault driver matters. Reaching it requires meeting the permanent injury threshold discussed under pain and suffering.

Two Carriers, Two Different Relationships

Your policy obligates you to cooperate with your own insurer. That includes providing information and, in some circumstances, submitting to an examination under oath.

The other driver’s carrier is owed nothing. You are not required to give a recorded statement, sign a blanket medical authorization, or accept its assessment of anything. That distinction is worth understanding before the first call, because adjusters for both sides sound identical on the phone.

What the Recorded Statement Is For

The request arrives early, often before symptoms have fully developed. It is presented as a formality needed to process the claim.

What it produces is a fixed account given by someone who has not seen a doctor, has not reviewed the crash report, and does not know what their injuries are. Statements about speed, visibility, or how you felt at the scene become the foundation of a fault theory that follows the file for years. Saying you feel fine is the single most common example, and it appears in nearly every claim where a neck or brain injury surfaces days later.

Under Florida’s comparative fault rule, every percentage point shifted onto you reduces the recovery, and enough points eliminate it entirely.

The Medical Authorization Problem

A broad authorization gives an insurer access to your complete medical history rather than treatment for this crash. What it finds is a prior chiropractic visit, an old imaging study showing degenerative change, or a note about back pain from a decade ago.

Those records become the argument that your condition predates the accident. Records relevant to the injury claimed are discoverable. Everything else is a search for something to use, which is why authorizations should be limited in scope rather than signed as presented.

Common Tactics and What Answers Them

Several patterns recur across carriers.

• Fast offers. An early check arrives before the medical picture is complete, and accepting it releases the claim permanently.
• Delay. Requests for the same documents repeatedly, waiting for financial pressure to make a low offer acceptable.
• Minimizing property damage. Repair estimates measure metal, not the forces transmitted to occupants.
• Treatment gap arguments. Any interruption in care is read as evidence the injury resolved.
• Independent medical examinations. The physician is selected and paid by the insurer, and the resulting report reliably finds less injury than the treating doctors did.

Consistent documentation defeats most of these. What gets recorded early determines what can be argued when the claim is valued.

When a Carrier Will Not Deal Fairly

Florida provides a complaint process through the Division of Consumer Services, which handles insurance complaints and can request mediation with a carrier.

Bad faith claims are a separate matter with their own procedural requirements, including a civil remedy notice filed with the state before any action proceeds. They arise where a carrier fails to settle within available limits despite clear liability and serious injury, most often in catastrophic injury cases where the harm far exceeds the policy.

Talk to a Florida Personal Injury Attorney

Once an attorney appears, adjusters communicate through the firm rather than with you. Tuttle Larsen Injury Attorneys has handled these negotiations across the Treasure Coast and Space Coast for more than 55 years combined, and Associate Jon Jacob H. Ashenback began his career on the insurance defense side, evaluating claims the way carriers do. A personal injury lawyer from our office can take over the correspondence and stop the requests designed to weaken your claim. We handle truck and vehicle claims throughout the region. If an insurer is pressing you for a statement or an early settlement, contact our office first. Cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, and consultations are free.

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