What are you buying when you purchase bodily injury coverage on your car insurance policy?
Generally, this coverage in Florida is indemnity coverage. This means that the insurance company will indemnify you against judgment up to your policy limits when you are sued for an accident during the policy period. So if you make a mistake a cause an accident with resulting injuries, then your insurance company has a contractual duty to any judgments entered against you by someone who you injure in your car, within your policy limits. Generally, these indemnity policy also provide a duty to defend, meaning the insurance company will hire you a lawyer and pay any costs of such suit. YOUR bodily injury coverage protects you by hiring you a lawyer and paying for any resulting judgment, up to your policy limits. It is this contractual obligation that causes an insurance company to “settle” with the injured person and having them sign a release stating that the injured person cannot sue you in court in exchange for a lump sum settlement.
Conversely, if you are injured by another driver, then it becomes important what bodily injury insurance the other, at fault driver has on their policy. And under Florida law, the insurance company must disclose what coverage are on the policy. When I represent an injured person, one of the first things I do is to request the applicable policies of insurance.
Of course, every case is different and unique and has to be judged based on the specific facts. The advice in this personal injury blog is intended to be general in nature and should not to be construed as specific advice for your case, as a slight difference in the facts could ultimately change the result. In this blog post, I am only writing about bodily injury coverage on automobiles and only writing in a general nature. Also, this blog is based on Florida law and the laws of any other states or another country could vary significantly from Florida.
