If you have been injured in a car accident, medical bills can create as much of a headache for you as the damage done to your automobile.
Dealing with insurance companies can be both stressful confusing. To offer you some peace of mind, the car accident attorneys at Shiner Law Group want you to know that as a registered motorist in Florida, you were required to purchase Personal Injury and Protection insurance. That means, regardless of who is at fault for your accident, PIP insurance will pay medical costs related to your injuries up to the limits of your policy.
In Florida, the law mandates a minimum of $10,000 in PIP coverage. But, ambulance transportation, hospital stays, surgery, orthopedic injuries, and extended physical therapy can consume your PIP coverage rather quickly. Think about it. Relatively minor medical injuries alone, such as whiplash or “soft tissue” complications, can run up medical bills totaling $10,000-$25,000. When that happens, yet, your medical expenses continue to mount, you probably wonder if your private health insurance can provide some relief and be used to pay for more treatment.
Why not ask David Shiner, a personal injury attorney with the Shiner Law Group. According to Shiner, the answer is “yes.” A doctor may take your health insurance after an accident. But, says Shiner, only after PIP insurance has been exhausted. Then motorists injured in a car accident may turn to their private health insurance policies to help pay for additional medical expenses.
Private health insurance can only be applied to cover your medical bills when you are involved in a single-car crash or are at fault in a multi-vehicle collision. For example, if you were involved in a multi-car accident in which the other drivers were at fault, your private health insurance would be of no help.
In this instance, an attorney at Shiner Law Group could file a lawsuit on your behalf against the negligent driver to help pay for your medical expenses. However, if you were involved in a single-car accident, you may benefit from a private health insurance policy when your PIP plan can no longer be counted on to cover your medical costs.
If you have purchased bodily injury insurance, as a Florida motorist should know that the additional protection will not cover your injuries, either. This type of coverage is to provide you protection in the event you were at fault for the car accident a third-party sues you for damages.
On the bright side, most health insurance policies will cover bills for injuries sustained in a car accident, as long as you are at fault. However, the significant factor to note is that Florida law mandates that PIP be maxed out before a claim can be filed with a private health insurance company. When a claim is filed under a personal health insurance policy, the injured motorists will likely be responsible for:
- Health insurance co-pays;
- Deductibles;
- Out-of-pocket expenses not covered under the policy.
If your losses do not equal what your health insurance will reimburse, as a driver who was not a fault in the accident, you have the legal right to seek compensation from the motorist responsible for your injuries.
Shiner Law Group represents motorists in Florida who seek to recoup reimbursement for damages from an uninsured or underinsured third-party after PIP insurance has been drained. Under Florida law, you have up until four years from the date of your car accident to file a lawsuit.
That does mean you should wait to file a lawsuit against an underinsured or worse, an uninsured driver. Chances are many underinsured motorists will not have purchased the additional bodily liability coverage needed to properly compensate you for your injuries. And, if you don’t know already, insurance companies representing these negligent drivers will not surrender to your medical claims so easily.
By now, you may have already learned that these same companies charged with safeguarding health will attempt to deny you reimbursement for your injuries even when fault has been clearly defined. You can count on the attorneys at Shiner Law Group to hold these insurers to their obligations and aggressively pursue the compensation you deserve, so be it, by filing a lawsuit in the Palm Beach County courts.
Insurance laws can be difficult for anyone to grasp. When the complexities are too much for you to understand and each passing day brings another medical bill to your mailbox, the experienced civil litigators at Shiner Law Group can help you to determine just what coverage you may be entitled to from a private health insurance plan.
