Who Pays Medical Bills After a Florida Motorcycle Accident?

Who Pays Medical Bills After a Florida Motorcycle Accident?

Key Takeaways

• Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance does not cover motorcycle accidents in Florida.
• You are not legally required to carry motorcycle insurance in Florida.
• You can use your own health insurance or MedPay Coverage to help cover the costs of your medical bills if you find yourself in a Florida motorcycle accident, are injured, and don’t have motorcycle insurance. 

After an injury, Florida motorcycle accident medical bills can pile up, making your road to recovery feel impossible. Your insurance coverage may be enough to cover the costs, but your injuries may be so severe that the cost of your medical bills exceeds your insurance coverage. You don’t have to fall into medical debt; you have options for paying your medical bills after a Florida motorcycle accident. 

Video Transcript:

Ever wonder how they come up with those big settlement numbers? Let me explain how personal injury claims are calculated. Personal injury claims basically follow the same pattern no matter what the injury is, what causes the injury, whether it's a car accident, a slip and fall, a trip and fall, any other type of product defect case causing an injury, the evaluation and calculation of damages is always the same.

Let's take a car accident case, the most typical type of personal injury case. In a car accident case, the first thing we're going to do is look at who caused the accident. Is it extremely 100% clear that the other person was the sole cause of the accident or are we dealing with a situation where our client is partly at fault also? or in some cases we have multiple defendants that contributed to the cause of the accident.

First we're dealing with fault. Oftentimes it's 100% the fault of the other driver. Let's say in a car accident case in Florida we follow something called a contributory fault which means that even if the driver admits that they're at fault they can also claim that our client was partly at fault themselves. So that gets taken into account.

The second thing that is put into the evaluation and calculation of a personal injury claim is the amount of your damages. And your damages are essentially broken down into economic damages and non-economic damages. And the economic damages are generally medical bills up to the date of a settlement. We call those past medical bills and then a calculation of what your future medical bills are going to be as a result of your injuries.

So, we're taking all of that past and future medical bills into account. We're also taking into account the extent of your lost wages. And when we go to resolve your claim or settle your claim, anything from that day in the past is called past lost wages. Anything in the future that you haven't yet lost but are expected to lose is called loss of earning capacity.

A perfect example would be a client who works a manual labor job. Let's say they build homes. They're a brick layer. And as a result of the accident, they can no longer be a brick layer making $50,000 a year and they don't have the other educational background to go out there and do a job making the similar amount of money. So those clients sometimes have a loss of earning capacity. They're not going to be unable to work for the rest of their lives. They're just going to be unable to make as much as they did prior to the accident.

We calculate that loss of earning capacity. We use experts such as vocational rehabilitation experts to help us determine what the loss of earning capacity is. And then to calculate those damages, we also bring in an economist which is required under the law to bring all of that future loss of earning capacity back to present value.

Those are the economic damages, the medical bills and lost wages, past and future. Then we have the non-economic damages that are broken down into what is generally referred to as pain and suffering. But in Florida, pain and suffering is really seven different elements. You’ve got compensation for your pain, your suffering, your mental anguish, your inconvenience, your loss of enjoyment of life, and your disability and scarring. Pain and suffering is the term we commonly use, but it’s really seven different elements.

We then also figure out what your past pain and suffering is worth. We also work with your doctors and other experts, we figure out what type of non-economic pain and suffering damages you're going to have in the future. So that goes into the evaluation of your future pain and suffering.

So all of those things start with how the accident happened. One of the things that are really important in car accident cases is what does the damage look like to the cars? Is it just a tiny dent on the bumper or is your car total? All of those factors go into the evaluation and calculation of damages in a personal injury claim.

If you have any other questions regarding the calculation or worth of your personal injury claim, please give me a call at 813-915-1110. I'll be happy to discuss it with you. The consultation's always free. We can do it over the phone. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. 

How Florida’s No-Fault Laws Apply to Motorcyclists

When you register a vehicle with at least four wheels in Florida, you must show proof of Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and Property Damage Liability (PDL) auto insurance. Under Florida’s No-Fault Law, PIP insurance covers 80 percent of all reasonable medical expenses up to the coverage limits resulting from a covered injury, regardless of who caused the auto accident. 

The problem with PIP insurance when it comes to motorcyclists, however, is that PIP insurance does not cover Florida motorcycle accidents. You will have to rely on your own insurance or that of the other driver if they caused the accident to cover your medical bills. 

Using Health Insurance and MedPay Coverage

If you find yourself in a Florida motorcycle accident, are injured, and don’t have motorcycle insurance, you can use your own health insurance or MedPay Coverage to help cover the costs of your medical bills. 

When the Other Driver’s Insurance Pays

Let's say you have health insurance, MedPay Coverage, or a combination of the two, but your damages resulting from the accident, such as your medical bills, exceed your insurance coverage. The answer to the question of who pays your motorcycle crash medical bills is the at-fault driver. An experienced attorney from our firm can help you build a personal injury claim so you can pursue a settlement against the at-fault driver.

What to Do If Your Florida Motorcycle Accident Medical Bills Are Still Unpaid

If you have unpaid Florida motorcycle accident medical bills and are in need of help, call Hancock Injury Attorneys today at 813-915-1110 to schedule a free consultation. We will listen to your story, investigate what happened, and work to ensure the at-fault party is held responsible for their negligence. 

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