When Is It Too Late to File a Personal Injury Claim in Florida?

When Is It Too Late to File a Personal Injury Claim in Florida?

Many people assume they have plenty of time to deal with a personal injury claim after an accident, until it’s too late to file and the statute of limitations has already expired. Attorney Mike Hancock explains that while Florida law generally gives injured victims two years to file a lawsuit, waiting too long can make it much harder to build a strong case and recover fair compensation.

What's My First Step After a Personal Injury Accident?

After a car accident, truck accident, or slip and fall, the first step is typically notifying the at-fault party's insurance company about your injuries and damages. Although you may technically have time to begin the claims process, reporting the accident as soon as possible is often in your best interest.

Early communication helps ensure the insurance company understands the full extent of your injuries, medical treatment, lost wages, and other damages before forming an opinion about your claim. Starting the process early also helps you avoid waiting so long that it becomes effectively too late to file a strong, well-documented claim.

Insurance companies often evaluate claims based on the information they receive early in the process. If they only hear that the accident seemed minor or that you initially felt okay, they may underestimate the seriousness of your injuries. They may not know that you later visited the emergency room, required ongoing medical care, or needed treatment from specialists. These early impressions can influence how the insurance company values your claim.

How Long Do I Have Before It's Too Late To File a Personal Injury Claim?

If settlement negotiations do not result in fair compensation, filing a lawsuit may become necessary. In Florida, the statute of limitations for most personal injury and wrongful death cases is generally two years from the date of the accident. Missing this deadline can prevent you from pursuing compensation altogether, meaning it is legally too late to file your personal injury lawsuit. Depending on the facts of your case, the lawsuit may involve multiple responsible parties, such as the driver, the vehicle owner, or even an employer.

Some cases involve even stricter deadlines. If your injuries were caused by someone working for a governmental agency, Florida law requires specific notice procedures before a lawsuit can proceed. In many situations, you must provide formal notice to the appropriate government agency within 18 months of the accident. Failing to meet these requirements may permanently bar your claim.

How an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney Can Help

An experienced personal injury attorney understands which information insurance companies need to properly evaluate a claim from the beginning. Your attorney can gather medical records, document lost income, identify all potentially liable parties, and handle communications with insurance adjusters. If negotiations fail, your attorney can prepare and file a lawsuit before important legal deadlines expire, ensuring your case is not dismissed as being too late to file under Florida’s statute of limitations.

Take Action Today: Protect Your Rights After a Florida Personal Injury Accident

The sooner you speak with an experienced personal injury attorney, the better your chances of protecting valuable evidence and preserving your legal rights. Don't wait until important deadlines are approaching or it becomes too late to file. If you've been injured in an accident, call Hancock Injury Attorneys at 813-915-1110 to discuss your case and learn about your options for pursuing compensation with one of our attorneys.

Video Transcript

How long do I have to file a personal injury claim in Florida? That's the question that is most often asked by new clients contacting us after they've been involved in some type of accident, whether it is a car accident, truck accident, or slip and fall.

The short answer is that in Florida, you now have only 2 years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit against the appropriate party or parties. Filing a lawsuit is different than bringing a personal injury claim. So, the way the process starts is that most people think of bringing a personal injury claim in the sense of “I'm going to contact the insurance company and tell them about my injuries and tell them about my medical bills and my lost wages and my damage to my car.” And that's essentially how we characterize bringing a personal injury claim.

The answer to: "How long do you have to do that?" Technically, you have up to two years, but the sooner you bring your personal injury claim to the attention of the at-fault insurance company, the better. And here's the reason why.

Think about it. You may be involved in a simple car accident. The other driver may say, "Hey, I don't think the other person was at fault." They may be talking to their insurance company about you. Their insurance company is going to ask, "Well, how did the accident happen?"

The most common case in Florida and in the whole nation is for car accidents. The most common way a car accident happens is a rear-end collision. Unless the cars need to be towed from the scene.

What I have seen in my experience is that the at-fault driver says, "Hey, I didn't hit the other person very hard. It was my fault, but I talked to you at the scene of the accident, and the person I hit said that they were okay." They said that they weren't injured. And if that's the only thing the insurance company knows from the very beginning, they're not going to think much of your claim.

They might not know that you ended up going to the emergency room later that night or the urgent care the next day. And they may not know that a month later you were still treating with a chiropractor or an orthopedic surgeon. And they may not know that you had recommendations for pain management, which would include injections or surgery.

So, if you don't bring your personal injury claim right away and inform the other company of all of your problems and all of your lost wages early on, they're going to set things called reserves, loss reserves, on your claim, and they may set it at $2,500 when in fact that would be grossly inadequate to compensate you for your injuries. The attorney is going to know what information is most important to the insurance company to be presented to them early on so that they can set the proper reserves for your particular claim.

Second thing is, let's get back to the 2-year statute of limitations. How long do you have to bring a personal injury claim? Of course, we want to bring it to the insurance company's attention as early as possible.

If negotiations don't work out, if they stall, if the insurance company doesn't see the claim and doesn't offer enough money to fairly compensate you for your injuries, the next step is to file a lawsuit against an appropriate party. That could be the driver of the car that hit you. It could be the driver and the owner of the car if those are different people. It could be the driver and the driver's employer in certain situations.

In all situations in Florida, you have 2 years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit against all the appropriate parties. So, we obviously don't want to wait until one day short of two years, but we want to, at first, present your claim to the insurance companies, give them an opportunity to fairly compensate you for your injuries, and then if that doesn't work out, then we take the next step with your permission to file a lawsuit against all the appropriate parties.

And that has to be done within two years. And that's in regular personal injury claims and wrongful death claims. That 2-year reference is called the statute of limitations.

There's one other time frame involved that is even more restrictive in Florida. That is if you are injured by someone who was working for a governmental agency at the time.

So, as an example, I represent a client who was driving home from school. She's a college student, and she got hit by an employee of a local fire department. Not while they were on the way to a fire, but just as part of their job. They were going from one location to another. That's an example of getting hit by someone from a governmental agency.

I had another client who got hit by a school bus. That government agency is the school board of Hillsborough County, for example. Whenever you're injured by a governmental agency, you still have at most 2 years to file your lawsuit, but there are also reporting requirements where you have to report your claim in a very specific manner to the appropriate governmental agency within 18 months of the date of the accident. If you don't, you lose your right to bring the claim forever.

Generally speaking, 2 years. In certain circumstances, it's less than two years. But hopefully that helps you answer your question. How long do I have to bring my personal injury claim in Florida? If you have other questions that I haven't answered here, please call me.

My name is Mike Hancock. I'm with Hancock Injury Attorneys. We represent people all over the state of Florida. We're located here in Tampa and also represent people across the Tampa Bay region. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have and give you a free consultation on your claim.

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