What happens when a car accident exceeds insurance limits?

When a car accident exceeds insurance limits, you go looking for other sources of money. When damages run past the at-fault driver’s policy, the order is usually your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, then anyone else who shares liability, then the driver personally, and sometimes the insurer itself for refusing a reasonable settlement. Suing the driver is the option people think of first and the one that pays least often.

Florida produces this problem more than most states, because drivers here aren’t required to carry bodily injury liability coverage at all. A Boca Raton car accident lawyer starts by finding every policy that could apply, since that search does more for a serious case than a judgment nobody can collect.

Why do car accident claims exceed insurance limits in Florida?

Because the required coverage is small and catastrophic injuries aren’t, Florida requires $10,000 of personal injury protection (PIP) and $10,000 of property damage liability, and nothing for the bodily harm a driver causes someone else. When a driver does carry bodily injury coverage, a common car insurance limit is $25,000 per person.

Set that against a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury, where lifetime care runs into the millions. Medical bills from one air ambulance flight and a week in intensive care can pass $25,000 before anyone’s said the word rehabilitation.

Can the insurance company be forced to pay above the policy limits?

Sometimes, and most people don’t know this exists. Under Florida Statute § 624.155, an insurer that fails to settle in good faith when it fairly could have can be held responsible for the whole judgment, including the part above its own coverage limits. The carrier had a chance to protect its insured for $25,000, gambled, and lost.

There’s a process. A civil remedy notice goes to the insurer and the state, and the insurer gets 60 days to cure. If it tenders the lesser of the policy limits or your demand within 90 days of proper notice, no bad faith claim is available, and adjuster negligence alone isn’t enough. The standard is real, and so is the leverage. It’s the most common way a recovery ends up larger than the coverage limits suggested.

How does UM/UIM coverage fill the gap?

Your own auto insurance steps in where the other driver’s runs out. Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage pays your damages when the at-fault driver’s insurance is too small or missing, and in a serious Florida crash it’s usually the most dependable source of extra money, since it’s the one policy you chose.

Check whether yours is stacked. Stacked UM multiplies your limit by the number of vehicles on the policy, so $50,000 across three cars becomes $150,000. Florida lets you reject stacking in writing for a lower premium, and plenty of people signed that form without registering the trade. Your carrier may still dispute how much the insurer will pay once other coverage is involved, which is why a personal injury lawyer treats a first-party claim like any other.

Can you go after the at-fault driver’s personal assets?

You can sue them personally. Collecting is a separate problem from winning, because Florida shields individual debtors more thoroughly than almost any state.

Two exemptions do most of that work. The constitutional homestead protection covers the driver’s home with no cap on value, so someone in a paid-off house can owe you a million dollars and keep it. And under Florida Statute § 222.11, all disposable earnings of a head of family at or below $750 a week are exempt from garnishment, and anything above that can’t be touched unless the person agreed in writing. Garnishment sounds like the obvious remedy and rarely produces much here. Some defendants are still collectible, and an asset check answers that before you spend years finding out.

Can anyone else be liable for the crash?

Often, and every additional defendant brings more insurance coverage. An employer is responsible when the at-fault driver was working. A vehicle owner who lent out the car can be liable under Florida’s dangerous instrumentality doctrine, which adds a second policy more often than people expect. A driver who caused the wreck without touching your car, the one who cut someone off and kept going, usually becomes a UM claim rather than a defendant.

Government defendants come with their own ceiling. If a malfunctioning signal or a stop sign hidden by overgrowth contributed, Florida Statute § 768.28 caps recovery against a state or local agency at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, and requires written notice before suit. Adding a city rarely solves a limits problem by itself.

Find every policy that applies to your crash

Lytal, Reiter, Smith, Ivey & Fronrath has represented injured Floridians for more than 40 years, with 21 attorneys and an office in Boca Raton. We work on a contingency fee basis, so you pay no attorney’s fees unless compensation is recovered.

If your medical expenses have already passed what the at-fault driver’s insurance covers, the search for other coverage shouldn’t wait, since policy information gets harder to gather over time. Call us at (561) 655-1990 or contact us online for a free consultation.