Panama City Car Accident Lawyer

You may still have coverage. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy is built for exactly this situation, and it can also apply if the at-fault driver carried a policy far too small for the harm they caused. Depending on the facts, a resident relative's policy or an employer's commercial policy may also come into play if the driver was working at the time.

Part of our job is finding every layer of available coverage rather than stopping at the first one. See insurance claims for more.

Fault is established from evidence: the crash report, physical damage patterns, scene photographs, skid marks, traffic camera or dashcam footage, witness accounts and, in serious cases, accident reconstruction.

Florida applies modified comparative negligence, so more than one driver can share responsibility. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, and a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault is generally barred from recovering. The police officer's opinion in the report is influential but not the final word — fault is ultimately decided on the evidence.

You are generally not required to give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement, and doing so before you have advice rarely helps you. Adjusters are trained to ask questions that produce useful admissions — about how fast you were going, whether you saw the other car, and especially about whether you are "feeling okay," which becomes an argument that you were not seriously hurt.

You do have duties of cooperation with your own insurer under your policy. The practical answer: report the crash, and let us handle the other side's adjuster.

You can still bring a claim. Under Florida's modified comparative negligence standard your damages are reduced in proportion to your share of the blame, and being found more than 50 percent at fault generally bars recovery.

Because that percentage directly controls what you receive, insurers push hard to assign as much of it to you as possible. Their opening position on fault is a negotiating stance, not a finding — it is very much worth contesting.

Mostly it depends on your treatment. A claim generally should not be settled until your condition has stabilized enough to understand the long-term outlook, because a settlement is final — if a problem turns out to be permanent after you have signed a release, you cannot go back.

Uncomplicated claims may resolve within a few months of finishing treatment. Serious injuries, disputed liability, or cases that go into litigation take longer. We will give you a realistic estimate once we have seen the file.

Nobody can responsibly answer that from a website or a first phone call, and you should be wary of any firm that offers a number before reviewing your records. Value turns on the severity and permanence of the injury, the total cost of past and future treatment, income you lost and your capacity to earn going forward, the strength of the liability evidence, your share of fault, and — often decisively — how much insurance coverage actually exists.

What we can do is review your case at no cost and give you a candid assessment based on the facts. Call 850-215-2195.