The term “bodily injury” is generally used to refer to a type of liability insurance or it may be used in the context of a crime, such as when someone suffers a bodily injury during an assault.

If you’re at fault for an accident or someone else’s injury, your bodily injury insurance coverage will pay for the injuries. Having bodily injury insurance can help ensure you don’t have to pay for the injured person’s medical bills out of your own pocket.

Personal injury is a term also used in a legal or insurance context. If you’ve been injured in an accident caused by someone else, you can file a personal injury claim. If the insurance company refuses to honor your personal injury claim, your legal team can file a lawsuit.

There is also “personal injury protection” (or PIP) insurance in no-fault insurance states like Florida. In a no-fault state, each driver’s PIP insurance pays for their own medical costs (up to the policy limit). PIP pays for medical bills regardless of who was at fault.

Every driver in Florida is required to carry a minimum of $10,000 of PIP coverage and $10,000 of property damage liability insurance. Normal drivers are not required to carry bodily injury liability coverage. Certain types of commercial drivers in Florida, like taxi drivers, are required to have bodily injury liability coverage.

Although bodily injury coverage is not required in Florida, many drivers choose to have it added to their auto insurance. If you’ve ever had to receive emergency care in the hospital, undergo a surgery or have had to deal with medical issues, you’re likely familiar with how expensive health care can be.

The $10,000 of personal injury protection each driver must have may sound like a lot of money, but it can quickly become a drop in the bucket if someone in an auto accident suffered serious injuries. If you cause a crash and someone is injured, you might still be the target of a lawsuit for their medical expenses in excess of the driver or passenger’s PIP coverage. Bodily injury insurance can take over where PIP leaves off, which can save you from having to cover those costs out of your own pocket.

Your Rights as the Injured Party

You can sue for a bodily injury in Florida, but not every case is guaranteed to be successful, even if the other driver was at fault. You and your legal team will need to be able to prove the other driver caused your accident and the other driver will need to have bodily injury insurance or another liability policy that can pay for your injuries. Although you can technically sue someone who doesn’t have liability insurance, there may simply be little to no money to recover.

The situation is different if your injury was caused by a commercial driver or a business. Businesses are required to have bodily injury insurance, and their policy limits are often high enough to cover your extensive medical costs, as well as other economic damages like lost wages and non-economic damages like pain and suffering.

How Are Personal Injury Claims Calculated?

The economic damages you suffer in a personal injury case are calculated using receipts, pay stubs and medical records. Your personal injury attorney will fight to ensure the medical costs you’ve incurred up until this point are covered and attempt to predict what your future or continuing medical costs will be based on professional medical opinions.

A car crash that causes a disability may result in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars of future and ancillary expenses. The injured person may be forced to modify their home, like equipping their bathroom with limited-mobility fixtures, installing wheelchair ramps and widening doorways to allow for wheelchairs. After a severe accident, a person may require in-home nursing or assistance, which can become exorbitantly expensive.

Those types of disabilities may also prevent a person from being able to work and earn a living. If the injured party was the primary wage earner in a household, it may be necessary for the responsible party’s insurance to cover decades of income and benefits (like health care and retirement savings).

All those costs, along with many others, should be covered by any personal injury claim agreement.

How Do Personal Injury Settlements Work?

Personal injury settlements are often the result of intensive negotiations between the injured party’s attorney and the insurance company.

Insurance companies would rather not pay out claims if they can avoid it. When culpability is clear and it’s obvious their policyholder was at fault, they often don’t have a choice. However, they can still find ways to minimize the amount the injured person is eventually paid.

Personal injury settlements may involve compromise wherein you don’t get paid the full amount you want but the insurance company still has to pay out more than they’d like. These types of compromises are often due to things like disputed fault or disagreements over the total cost of your injuries or the long-term effects your injury may have on your ability to earn a living.

Experienced attorneys who are committed to doing what’s in their client’s best interest will go into settlement negotiations with extensive evidence gathered from investigation. They will have medical records, statements from doctors and information about the accident to establish who was at fault for your injuries, your recovery outlook and what your injuries will mean for your health and happiness moving forward.

Once you and the insurance company agree to a settlement, you’ll need to sign the necessary papers and then you’ll get a check. In most cases, the check will go to your personal injury attorney who will place the money into an account. Outstanding medical liens and your lawyer’s contingency fee will then be paid out of that account, and you’ll receive the rest.

Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney for Car Accidents in Boca Raton

Life in Boca Raton isn’t always free of troubles, despite the beautiful weather, friendly disposition of locals and relaxed vibe of this vacation and retirement destination. Accidents, malicious behavior and the negligent actions of drivers, professionals or normal people going about their lives can cause severe, future-altering injuries.

When people are injured by the careless, reckless or criminal actions of others, the injured party should be fairly compensated. You shouldn’t have to bear the financial burden of someone else’s mistake. Although money won’t ever reverse pain, suffering or the loss of a loved one, it is the best way to at least partially make things right.

The personal injury lawyers at Kanner & Pintaluga have dedicated their practice to righting the wrongs inflicted upon residents of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County. Every member of our team, from founders Howard Kanner and Eric Pintaluga to our associate attorneys, paralegals and support staff, is passionate about our mission to make people financially whole after a serious injury or death in their family.

While it’s true that no amount of money can reverse a disability or bring back a loved one, it can help ensure your family is cared for and you can live as comfortably as possible.

We use our extensive resources and decades of combined experience to thoroughly investigate car accidents and other injury incidents to ascertain the truth of who is responsible. We thoroughly prepare for all insurance company negotiations and leverage what we find to fight for the best possible claim settlement for our clients. If the insurance company refuses to offer fair recovery, we won’t hesitate to take them to court and pursue the compensation you deserve at a jury trial.

Find out why so many people in Boca Raton with car and truck accident injuries turn to Kanner & Pintaluga. Call us at 800.586.5555 to get started.