• So how did this no fault Florida car insurance law come about in the first place, anyway?

Well, the no fault Florida car insurance law was started up in that state about forty years ago. For most of the time in the history of automobiles and high performance calls, compensation for car insurance accidents were covered by laws governing financial responsibility. Sometimes in the sixties, things changed, and most states switched over to mandatory car insurance laws. During the time between that initial start of having car insurance laws, and the switch to no fault Florida car insurance at the beginning of 1972, people were seeing some major faults in the current car insurance system.

The rates were going up like crazy in Florida and in other states as well. Most of this was because of injured people who would hire lawyers and take the other driver who was responsible for a car insurance accident to court. This ended up with lots of extra fees in lawsuits, lawyer costs, medical costs, and so on, so lawmakers figured that they had to do something to get everything under control. That is when no fault car insurance law came along. Massechusetts had already jump started things with its own no fault car insurance law, and Florida followed suit.

• A lot of trial lawyers are supporting the extension of the no fault Florida car insurance system. Why is that?

Trial lawyers have been rolling in the dough under the no fault Florida car insurance laws. The reason for this is that when there are pain and suffering lawsuits, they are often big ones, and it’s the car insurance company that pays the lawyer. With a single case, a car insurance lawyer can make over ten thousand dollars. Lawmakers hope to fix that by installing a fee system within the legislation, because at the moment the judge is the one who says how much a trial lawyer is going to get paid.

• Does Florida really have so many no fault car insurance law problems?

Oh, yeah. It has quite a few. Florida is number six on the national list of high auto insurance premiums. Even though there are supposed to be restrictions in place so that a lot of pain and suffering lawsuits don’t happen, there are also a lot of loopholes, so they go through the cracks anyway and trial lawyers are very good at finding out how. Pretty much all you need is a note from a health care professional saying that you have sustained a permanent injury, but the injury needn’t be all that bad. It could be a very slight, barely noticeable limp, but it would count.

Another thing is all the fraud. Car insurance companies pay more for medical costs than health insurance companies would if they were in the same position. There are accident set ups where people stage accidents and then go in for treatment of medical problems that don’t really exist so that doctors can get paid. This has caused an even worse rise in car insurance premium than before no fault car insurance laws were enacted.