Many people injured in Florida car accidents are surprised to find that the hardest fight isn’t with the driver who hit them. It’s with their own insurance company.
This happens most often with uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM) claims. Florida doesn’t require drivers to carry bodily injury liability coverage, so many at-fault drivers have little or no insurance to pay for the harm they cause. When that happens, your own UM coverage is meant to step in. In a UM claim, though, your insurer is effectively standing in the shoes of the at-fault driver, and it may push back on your claim the same way an adversary would.
What UM coverage does
UM coverage pays for injuries caused by a driver who has no insurance or not enough insurance. That can include medical expenses beyond what personal injury protection (PIP) covers, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Florida insurers must offer UM coverage, but policyholders can reject it in writing. If you aren’t sure whether you have it, check your declarations page.
When an insurer acts in bad faith
Florida law requires insurers to handle claims in good faith, which means fairly, honestly and with due regard for the interests of their own policyholder. An insurer that unreasonably delays, undervalues or denies a valid claim can be held responsible beyond the policy limits.
Under section 624.155, Florida Statutes, a policyholder generally must first file a Civil Remedy Notice with the Florida Department of Financial Services. That gives the insurer 60 days to fix the problem. If it doesn’t, the policyholder may be able to pursue a bad faith claim.
Florida’s 2023 tort reform law (HB 837) changed this area in important ways. Mere negligence by an insurer is no longer enough to prove bad faith, and the law added protections for insurers that pay within certain time frames. These changes make experienced legal guidance more important than ever.
A real-world example
Roman Austin represented a woman who suffered a fractured pelvis after being pinned between two vehicles in a parking lot. She could not walk normally or return to work. Her own insurer, State Farm, refused to take her injuries seriously, so the firm took her UM claim to trial. The jury returned a verdict more than ten times her policy limits, and State Farm later settled the resulting bad faith claim.
Protecting your claim
If your insurer is delaying, lowballing or denying your UM claim, keep copies of every letter and email, write down every phone call, and don’t accept a final settlement or sign a release before you understand your rights. An attorney can review your policy, value your claim and decide whether the insurer’s conduct supports a bad faith claim.
Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
