Florida Weighs Whether to Continue Personal Injury Coverage

March 29, 2007

  • March 29, 2007 at 4:18 am
    chad balaamaba says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    on one hand, the article presents an emotional picture of the lady who states she wouldn\’t know she had 6 herniated discs if it wasn\’t for PIP as she couldn\’t pay for the doctor visit to find out; obviously, this involved diagnostics, and not just an MD visit. PIP covers 80% of reasonable and necessary meds; so she still would owe 20%. Her point that she had \’no money\’ to pay doesn\’t add up; she still had to cover 20%…unless she had medpay.

    If pip is dissolved, medpay will still likely be offered in the state; it doesn\’t have the 80% payment issue attached; it would pay 100% of necessry/related meds up to it\’s limit. However, it hopefully wouldn\’t be subject the whims of the Florida PIP arb system, which makes it difficult to carriers to police fraud in the PIP system.

    Another needed change would be the addition of mandatory bodily injury liability limits.

    There are reasons for continuing and discontinuing the coverage. It doesn\’t function as true no fault, so it turns out to be a methodology to build a case against a tortfeasor.

    Reforms, such as those enacted by states like NJ, may assist. It gives carriers to power to question those injury claims on an even playing field. Thousands of quacks left the state when the new law took effect.

  • March 29, 2007 at 5:53 am
    Florida Retail Agent says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Yeah…Those quacks all came here to roost in Florida. If the mandatory BI is attached to the sunset of PIP then it\’s a win/win. BUT…with the unfortunate property insurance climate here in the sunshine state it\’s anyone\’s guess if the legislature will give the insco\’s another revenue stream in auto when people can\’t afford their home insurance already.

  • March 30, 2007 at 11:15 am
    Tom says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    If the continuation of PIP is done, then shouldn\’t a mandatory provider fee schedule be put in place, such as Medicare does? And insurance companies should monitor the abuse, they certainly can tell if providers are milking the system.
    As for the injured woman story, wouldn\’t mandatory Med Pay replacing the PIP worked out better for her since it pays 100% of medical?
    A little confused on this issue.

  • April 2, 2007 at 6:15 am
    Red Man says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    The PIP law was supposed to lower auto insurance rates in Florida. Now that we Floridians are supporting a dual system (i.e. Tort and PIP) we have the 8th highest rates in the country. On February 22nd State Farm stated that they could reduce rates by 16% ($350 on a dual car household) if the PIP law was allowed to sunset. If all companies would follow suit, it would help defray some of the Homeowners cost. It is time for the legislature to attack the issue and pass a cumpulsary liability law with some teeth in it. Oklahoma has a bill in committee that would impound the automobile if the driver was stopped for ANY traffic violation and could not prove that the vehicle was insured for BI & PD. The present law is a disaster, and Jeb was correct when he vetoed the band aid bill that was presented to him last year.

  • April 22, 2007 at 10:39 am
    Joshua says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I think that these responses were written by state farm. Why doesn\’t state farm and the rest of the insurance lobby own up to the fact that if no fault is gone floridians may save $250 a year in auto insurance but pay three times more for health insurance. The insurance industry is rife with their own sort of fraud, they proved that with homeowners insurance.



Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*