Floridians pay much more by way of auto insurance when compared to the residents of the other states. All the cute television commercials that are endlessly being aired on TV are not going to make the payment process any easier for the residents of Florida. They are not likely to enjoy paying their quarterly auto insurance bills that is going to show up in their mailboxes. Floridians pay around $1,200 per year on auto insurance. If these payments are to be eased then lawmakers will have to find ways and means to reduce the attorney’s fees as well as the fraud that is associated with the PIP auto insurance.
PIP is a pretty decent idea in terms of auto insurance. However, this doesn’t seem to be working well in Florid.
In most of the states, when there is a motor vehicle accident, the insurers, motorists, as well as the courts come to a conclusion on who was at fault. After this is done, the party that is ‘at fault’ will pay for damages – rather the insurer will pay the person who is harmed.
However, in Florida as well as 8 other states the drivers will have to carry insurance of at least $10,000 to make claims with their insurers to cover part of the medical costs that are injury-related irrespective of who is at fault.
In general, Floridians can sue the other motorists only if the medical bills are very large and if there is evidence of gross negligence.
Hence, theoretically speaking the PIP system has many advantages where the injured drivers get some of the benefits paid quickly even when the other driver is uninsured. There are also fewer legal costs and the policyholders can spend more on benefits.
However, the Florida’s PIP doesn’t work very well in keeping the legal costs down.
The main problem for this is because of the ‘multiplier’ that is given to attorney who manages to win these cases (PIP). When lawyers win these PIP cases they are paid 250% of the regular fees.
This kind of an award was initially created to encourage attorneys to fight for the civil rights cases. This was never intended to be applied to settle ordinary disputes between customers and the insurers.
Now Florida will have to look for ways and means to make the PIP coverage optional for those customers who have health insurance cover for the same things.
