What is my injury case worth in Florida?
Nobody can tell you on the first call, and the reason is not caution. Two of the numbers a claim is built from do not exist yet — what the treatment will finally cost, and whether anything is permanent — and a third, the value of the medical bills themselves, is now set by a statute most people have never heard of.
And it reaches an old crash. Chapter 2023-15 ends with two applicability sections, and section 768.0427 is not named in either one. Section 28 covers only the amendments to the limitations statute, and applies them to causes of action accruing after the act became law. Everything else falls to section 30: “Except as otherwise expressly provided in this act, this act shall apply to causes of action filed after the effective date of this act.” The act became law on 24 March 2023. So a 2021 crash that has never been filed is evaluated under these rules, because the date that matters for them is the filing date and not the crash date. There is more on how those two clauses interact at Florida injury filing deadlines.
That statute is the part worth your time. In March 2023 Florida changed what a medical bill is worth as evidence, which is not the same thing as what the hospital charged. Two people with identical injuries and identical bills can now walk into the same courtroom with different numbers, because one of them has health insurance and the other does not. Almost nothing written about case value in this state has caught up with it.
What an honest lawyer can do on day three is tell you what the number is built from, which of those parts your facts already support, and what would move them. That is what this page does.
Written by the attorney who handles the cases. Reviewed by Paul R. Shalhoub.
What the number is built from
Five parts, and each needs something specific to exist before it counts for anything.
| Part of the claim | What has to exist for it to count |
|---|---|
| Past medical expenses | Bills for treatment that was reasonable and medically necessary — and, since 2023, proof of what was actually paid or what rate applies. The figure on the invoice is no longer the figure |
| Future medical expenses | A physician’s opinion, to a reasonable degree of medical probability, about what care is still needed and what it costs. Not an estimate, and not something a lawyer can supply |
| Lost income | Documented earnings before and after. For an employee that is payroll. For someone self-employed it is returns, invoices and a pattern, which takes longer and is worth starting early |
| Loss of earning capacity | Evidence that the injury changed what you are able to do for a living. A separate claim from the wages already missed, and frequently the larger one |
| Pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment | In a motor vehicle case, a permanent injury or one of three other categories set by statute. Without one of them this part of the claim is not in the case at all |
There is no formula that turns those into a figure. No multiplier, no “three times the medicals”, nothing in Florida law that produces a number from the bills. Anyone who quotes you one is guessing, and the guess runs low, because the parts that have not happened yet are the parts carrying the most value.
The 2023 change that decides what your medical bills are worth
Section 768.0427 decides it, and no competing article on this question mentions the statute at all.
Before 2023 a jury generally heard what a provider charged. Now section 768.0427(2) sets out what evidence of medical damages is admissible at all, and the answer turns on how the treatment was paid for. Under (2)(a), where a past bill has already been satisfied, the evidence is limited to “the amount actually paid, regardless of the source of payment.” A $40,000 hospital charge an insurer settled for $9,000 is a $9,000 item.
Where a past bill is still unpaid, (2)(b) splits four ways.
| Your situation | What an unpaid past bill is worth as evidence |
|---|---|
| You have health coverage and you used it s. 768.0427(2)(b)1 |
The amount the coverage is obligated to pay the provider, plus your own share — deductible, copay, coinsurance |
| You have coverage but treated on a letter of protection, or did not bill
it s. 768.0427(2)(b)2 | The amount the coverage would have paid had you used it, plus the share you would have owed. Choosing not to use insurance does not raise the number |
| You have no coverage at all, or you are on Medicare or
Medicaid s. 768.0427(2)(b)3 | 120 percent of the Medicare rate on the date of service. Where no Medicare rate exists for that service, 170 percent of the Florida Medicaid rate |
| The provider sold your bill to a factoring company s. 768.0427(2)(b)4 |
What that company actually paid or agreed to pay the provider — the discounted figure, not the invoice |
Subsection (2)(c) applies the same logic to future treatment, using the Medicare rate at the time of trial for an uninsured claimant. And (4) closes the loop: recoverable damages for medical care may not exceed what subsection (2) makes admissible.
What that means in practice. If you have no health insurance and you are being treated on a promise to pay out of the case, the amount you are signing for and the amount that treatment contributes to your claim are two different figures, and the second is usually far smaller. That is not a reason to go without care — an untreated injury is worth less and heals worse. It is a reason to know what you are agreeing to owe before you sign it.
If you are treating on a letter of protection
The 2023 statute turned it into a disclosure obligation, and one of the disclosures is about your own lawyer.
A letter of protection is defined broadly at section 768.0427(1)(d): any arrangement under which a provider treats you in exchange for a promise of payment out of a judgment or settlement, and the definition applies regardless of what the arrangement is called. Giving it another name does not take it outside the statute.
Subsection (3) makes disclosure a condition precedent to claiming those medical expenses at all. Four of the five items are paperwork: the letter itself; itemized billing carrying the proper CPT, HCPCS, ICD, APC, EAPG or DRG codes; the name of any company that bought the receivable and what it paid, including the discount below invoice; and whether you had health coverage at the time, and whose.
The fifth, (3)(e), is the one to understand before choosing a firm. If you were referred to the provider under a letter of protection, who referred you is disclosable — and where the referral came from your own attorney, the statute makes it admissible notwithstanding section 90.502, the lawyer-client privilege. It goes further: the law firm’s financial relationship with that provider, the number of referrals, how often, and what benefit flows, is relevant to the provider’s bias.
In plain terms, a firm that routes every client to the same handful of clinics has handed the defense a cross-examination, and it is your treatment record that gets cross-examined. Ask any lawyer you are considering how referrals are made and what relationship exists. It is a fair question, and since 2023 it is a material one.
Whether pain and suffering is in the case at all
In a Florida motor vehicle claim this is a threshold, not a discount. It is in, or it is out.
Section 627.737(2) allows recovery for pain, suffering, mental anguish and inconvenience only where the injury consists in whole or in part of one of four things.
| Category | What the statute says |
|---|---|
| (a) | Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function |
| (b) | Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement |
| (c) | Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement |
| (d) | Death |
This is why permanency moves a case more than any other single fact. It is not that a permanent injury is worth more. It is that without one of these four, the largest part of the claim does not exist at all, and what is left is bills and lost wages.
One detail the market routinely gets wrong. The threshold attaches to the defendant’s vehicle, not yours. The statute limits actions brought against the owner, registrant, operator or occupant of a motor vehicle “with respect to which security has been provided”. So the question is whether the vehicle that hit you carried the required coverage. That matters most to motorcyclists, who have no personal injury protection of their own and are routinely told, wrongly, that the threshold can therefore never apply to them. The practical advice is the same either way: build the permanency proof you may turn out not to need, because it cannot be built backwards after a defense expert has testified.
The ceiling nobody mentions on the first call
What a claim is worth and what can actually be collected are two questions, and the second was usually decided before you called anyone.
Florida requires $10,000 of personal injury protection and $10,000 of property damage liability for most private passenger vehicles. Bodily injury liability coverage is not part of that minimum. A driver can be entirely legal on Florida roads, cause a catastrophic injury, and have nothing available to pay for it.
When that happens the claim is worth whatever it is worth, and the recovery is limited to what exists: the at-fault driver’s bodily injury limits if there are any, your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, any other policy that reaches the facts, and in rare cases the driver’s own assets. Finding the coverage is first-week work, not last-month work, and a firm that has not asked about your own policy early is not doing it. The uninsured motorist page covers how that coverage is claimed and the notice that has to go out before anything is signed.
What comes off the top before you see any of it
A settlement figure is not what you keep, and most of the gap is decided by section 768.76.
Section 768.76(1) requires a court to reduce an award by collateral sources — payments made for your benefit from health insurance, disability coverage and similar programs — with one large exception: no reduction is made for a source that holds a right of subrogation or reimbursement. Those are not deducted from the award; they are repaid out of the recovery instead. Under (2)(b), Medicare, Medicaid, workers’ compensation and federal programs carrying a lien are excluded from the definition of a collateral source entirely and run on their own rules.
Where a provider or insurer does hold a reimbursement right, (4) limits what it can take to the amount actually recovered from the at-fault party, reduced by its pro rata share of your attorney’s fees and costs. It does not get paid first and whole while you absorb the cost of recovering its money.
And a deadline runs against them, not you. Under (6) and (7), once notice of intent to claim damages has gone out by certified or registered mail, a provider asserting subrogation or reimbursement has 30 days from receipt to respond with a statement of what it paid and what right it claims. A provider that does not respond in that window waives it. Subsection (9) separately requires the provider to produce the information needed to prove the value of those collateral sources, and a court may weigh a refusal against it.
That sequence is ordinary lien work, it happens after the settlement number is agreed, and it is where a meaningful part of what you actually keep is won or lost. It is also why two people can settle for the same figure and take home very different amounts.
Your share of the fault
Since March 2023 this is not only a reduction. Past a point it is the whole case.
Section 768.81(6) bars recovery entirely for a person found more than 50 percent at fault for their own injuries. At or below that line the award is reduced by the percentage: at 20 percent a $100,000 verdict pays $80,000; at 51 percent it pays nothing.
Which is why an early argument about fault is never a small thing, and why a recorded statement given in the first week has a way of reappearing. The comparative fault page sets out how those percentages are decided, and what to do when their insurer has already blamed you.
Do you need a lawyer to find out what your case is worth?
Sometimes the honest answer is no, and it is worth saying which situation is which.
Where you probably do not. Treatment is finished, the injury resolved, the bills are small and undisputed, nothing was permanent, and the offer in front of you covers the bills with something on top. Paying a third of a small figure to formalize a number you already have is a poor trade, and a lawyer who takes that case anyway is doing you no favor.
Where you probably do. Treatment is still going, so nobody knows what future care costs. Anything permanent has been mentioned, even as a possibility. Lost income is part of it, particularly if you are self-employed. There is a lien, because what you keep is settled after the liens are. You have no health insurance and you are being asked to sign a letter of protection. Fault is disputed. Or somebody has handed you a number with no explanation of how they reached it.
A deadline runs through all of it. Section 95.11(5)(a) gives two years for an action founded on negligence. Working out what a claim is worth takes time, and running out of time makes the question academic.
Common questions
Can you give me a range on the first call?
Not an honest one. Until treatment has gone far enough to know whether anything is permanent, two of the five parts of the claim are unknown, and under section 768.0427 even the medical bills do not have a settled value yet. What is possible on a first call is to tell you which parts of your claim already exist, which are still open, and what would move them.
Is there a formula? I have read about multiplying the medical bills
No. No Florida statute, rule or jury instruction produces a number from the bills, and the “multiply by three” idea has no legal basis in this state. Since 2023 it is further off than ever, because section 768.0427 means the bills themselves are not worth their face value as evidence.
I have no health insurance. Does that lower what my case is worth?
It changes what your unpaid past medical bills are worth as evidence. Under section 768.0427(2)(b)3 an uninsured claimant’s unpaid charges are admissible at 120 percent of the Medicare rate on the date of service, or 170 percent of the Medicaid rate where no Medicare rate applies. The injury is the same; the paper value of the treatment is lower. It is a reason to understand a letter of protection before signing one, and not a reason to go untreated.
What is maximum medical improvement, and why does everything wait for it?
It is the point at which your treating physician says the condition has stabilized: further recovery is not expected, and what remains is what you are left with. Before it, nobody can say whether this was a six-week strain or a permanent restriction, and that one answer decides whether pain and suffering is in the case under section 627.737(2). Settling before it is settling without knowing.
Does it matter that the other driver was ticketed?
It helps as a fact about what happened, and it does not decide the civil case. Fault in a Florida injury claim is apportioned on the evidence under section 768.81, and a traffic citation is neither binding on that question nor the end of an argument about percentages.
Will the liens really take that much?
It depends who holds them. A health insurer or provider asserting reimbursement under section 768.76 is limited to what was actually recovered from the at-fault party, less its pro rata share of your fees and costs, and it waives the claim altogether if it does not assert the right within 30 days of receiving the statutory notice. Medicare and Medicaid sit outside that section and are handled on their own rules.
Is a settlement taxed?
Compensation for physical injury or physical sickness is generally not federal taxable income, but parts of a recovery can be — punitive damages and some interest among them — and how a settlement is allocated matters. That is a question for a tax professional on the specific award rather than for a lawyer in general terms.
How long does it take to find out?
Treatment sets the pace. A claim that resolves without suit tends to move once you reach maximum medical improvement and a demand goes out. One that has to be filed and tried takes considerably longer. Speed and value usually pull against each other, which is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default.
Does Paul give an opinion on value before taking a case?
He will tell you what the claim is built from, which parts your facts already support, what is missing, and what he would do about it this week. He will not give you a figure before the medicine supports one. A firm that does on a first call is telling you something about the firm rather than about your claim.
What would most improve my claim right now?
Consistent treatment, documented. The two arguments that most often reduce a Florida injury claim are that the injury was not caused by this crash and that it was not as serious as described, and both are answered with a record showing you were seen, you kept going, and a physician wrote down what was found. A gap in treatment is the most common thing that costs a case money.
Written by
Paul R. Shalhoub
Personal injury attorney, West Palm Beach
Paul R. Shalhoub is the owner of Shalhoub Law Injury & Accident. He began his career defending insurance carriers and now represents the people those carriers underpay, handling every case personally from the first call through trial. He was mayor of Lake Clarke Shores in 2022 and 2023, after three terms on its town council, and sits on boards across Palm Beach County.
Where this fits
The claim types this answer touches, and how the firm runs them.
Talk to Paul, not a case manager
If somebody has put a number in front of you and not explained how they reached it, that is a short conversation with a clear answer, and Paul R. Shalhoub will have it with you himself. Consultations are free and confidential. We advance case costs, and you owe no attorney’s fees or reimbursement of those costs unless we recover compensation for you.
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Shalhoub Law Injury & Accident, 1011 N Olive Ave, West Palm Beach, FL 33401. This describes Florida law as of 29 October 2026 and applies to claims in Florida. Sections 768.0427, 768.76, 768.81, 627.737 and 95.11 were read at leg.state.fl.us for this page. It is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome.