Updated: 4/29/26*
In this article, we cover protecting your legal rights after a car accident or other personal injury, how an insurance company reacts if a victim delays seeing a doctor, how to overcome the insurance company’s claim that your injury is not related, what to do if you already waited, and what to do next.
People get hurt in a variety of ways. Car accidents, slip and falls, injuries at work, even going to the grocery store.
When these events occur, sometimes it may seem logical to just go home and take care of your injuries yourself. Lots of us do this, simply because we feel like we are not seriously hurt at the time of the accident and that time will heal our injuries.
No matter how you feel at the time of your accident, you should always seek immediate medical attention. This is true even if you do not have automobile or health insurance. There are plenty of doctors who will treat you even if you have no insurance, especially if you have a personal injury claim.
One reason for this recommendation is that waiting to see a doctor can negatively impact any benefits that you may be entitled to and the value of any injury claim you may have. However, it does not mean you cannot recover compensation for your injuries, including your medical bills, pain and suffering, and lost wages. It just makes things more difficult to get fair compensation.
Protecting Your Legal Rights After a Car Accident or Other Personal Injury
It is important at the time of your injury to immediately report the incident to the property owner, store manager, or to the police, and to file a police report in a car crash, in order to document what happened to you.
If you are hurt in a car accident, in order to preserve your rights under your PIP coverage, it is equally important to notify your insurance company about your accident and to go see a doctor within two weeks (14 days) of the accident.
What Happens When a Victim Does Not Make a Report Immediately After a Car Accident, Slip and Fall, or Other Personal Injury?
Having a record of what happened, a record that is close in time to the date the accident or injury occurs, is essential in building and proving a case. This is especially true when you may need to prove months or years later that your injuries are related to your accident.
Incident reports filed with mall management or a grocery store manager after a slip and fall, or a police report after a car accident, are often the key pieces of evidence to prove a case at a later date. They document the time of the incident, descriptions of conditions, locations, names of potential witnesses, your contemporaneous statements about the accident, and other important information.
However, failing to get this documentation timely does not mean that you do not have a case. It means that you have made it much harder to prove your case.
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14 Day Deadline to See a Doctor After Being Injured in a Car Accident
Florida is one of the minority states in this country that has mandatory $10,000.00 Personal Injury Protection (PIP or No-Fault Insurance) for all cars registered in Florida. PIP is an injury benefit within every car owner’s insurance policy. It covers lost wages and medical care, among other benefits, and it provides you with up to $10,000.00 to pay for your car accident damages, regardless of fault.
However, if you do not go see a doctor and get medical care for your injuries within 14 days of the event, then under Florida Statute 627.736, your car insurance policy will not provide PIP coverage and you will not receive any of the $10,000.00 PIP benefits for medical care. If you wait, you lose those rights.
The bottom line is that if you fail to get medical treatment within 14 days of your Florida car accident, then you will have waived your PIP claim. But this does not mean you cannot recover compensation from the person who caused the car accident for pain and suffering, lost wages, and other economic and non-economic losses. It does mean that you lose the benefits under your own insurance policy, which are limited to $10,000.00.
Quick Tip. The Average Rear-End Car Accident Settlement Is $20,000.00 (Details)
Quick Tip. The Average Grocery Store Slip and Fall Settlement Is $35,000.00 (Details)
Why Do Victims Delay Seeking Help?
The thought of filing a lawsuit can be overwhelming after a car accident or other personal injury. A victim may also be dealing with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, which includes sleeplessness, fatigue, flashbacks, and other issues.
How Do You Recover Emotional Distress Damages in Florida?
How Will an Insurance Company React If a Victim Delays Seeing a Doctor?
Because the victim waited to see a doctor, the insurance company will likely deny the claim or make an unreasonable offer based on their assertion that the victim’s injuries are not related to the accident.
Pre-Existing Injury. How Can You Win Your Case?
How Do You Overcome the Insurance Company’s Claim That Your Injury Is Not Related?
If you are hurt in some type of accident caused by another person’s negligence, the decision to seek medical attention is not always an easy one to make when you have no insurance or your insurance is subject to a large deductible.
For these reasons, many victims will not seek medical attention for days or even weeks after a trauma. When this happens, it is critical that a victim visits a doctor and provides the doctor with the following information.
- An accurate account of the car accident or slip and fall
- An accurate history of when they felt injured
- An accurate account of which areas of their body are now being affected by the fall or car accident
In those circumstances where a victim waits to seek treatment, you will often see in a doctor’s initial entry in the victim’s medical chart something to the effect. “Patient is a XX year old man who was involved in a slip and fall at a grocery store two weeks ago. At the time, he felt that he twisted his ankle and he was also in discomfort. He decided to go home and ice his ankle. He had considerable problems ambulating. After three days, he did not feel improvement and he was still swollen. Additionally, about three days after the accident he felt pain in his low back. He then decided that he needed medical assessment and has come to this office.”
Accident victims sometimes do not seek immediate medical help because they believe the injury will go away on its own, or because their injuries did not produce pain symptoms until days after the incident. That is a fairly common occurrence, especially in strain and sprain soft tissue injuries and other delayed injuries such as back, shoulder, or neck pain, nausea, or symptoms like a headache or dizziness from a concussion. Oftentimes, these injuries do not show up for weeks or even months after a car accident.
When a victim delays seeking medical treatment, it is necessary to educate the insurance adjuster or a jury that severe injuries can occur even though there were few if any symptoms immediately after the slip and fall or car accident. Your personal injury lawyer will prepare you and your doctors to testify in a logical fashion that will make sense to an ordinary juror who might very well have done the same thing in the same situation.
I Already Waited. Does That End My Case?
Many people find this page after the delay has already happened. The accident was two weeks ago, or a month ago, or longer. They finally saw a doctor. The injuries turned out to be serious. Now they are worried that waiting has ended their chance at fair compensation.
In most cases, a delay does not end your case. It complicates it. There is a meaningful difference between those two things, and understanding that difference is the first step.
What the Insurance Company Will Argue
The defense will use your delay in two specific ways. First, they will argue you failed to mitigate your damages, meaning that under Florida law you had a duty to take reasonable steps to minimize your harm, and waiting to see a doctor violated that duty. Second, they will argue that the delay proves the injuries are not serious, or that they were caused by something that happened after the accident rather than the accident itself.
These are standard arguments. They are not automatic winners for the defense. Florida courts have recognized that people delay seeking medical care for entirely legitimate reasons, including lack of insurance, lack of funds, and the genuine belief that the injury would resolve on its own. What matters is whether you can explain the delay credibly and whether your medical records, once established, connect your injuries to the accident.
What You Can Still Do
See a doctor now if you have not already. Every additional day you wait makes the gap between the accident and your first medical visit larger. That gap is the insurance company’s main weapon. Close it as soon as possible. When you see the doctor, give an accurate account of the accident, when you first felt symptoms, and why you delayed. That history goes into your medical chart and becomes part of the record.
Document the reason for the delay. If you waited because you lacked insurance, because you could not afford the co-pay, because you thought it would improve on its own, or because your symptoms took time to fully develop, write that down now. Your attorney needs to be able to explain the delay to an adjuster or a jury in terms they will find credible. A documented reason is far more useful than no explanation at all.
Do not give a recorded statement before speaking to an attorney. The insurance adjuster may call and ask why you waited to see a doctor. That conversation is being recorded and will be used to build their denial argument. Tell them your attorney will be in contact and end the call.
Gather whatever contemporaneous evidence still exists. Surveillance footage from the accident scene is often overwritten within 30 to 72 hours, so that may already be gone. But witness names and contact information, photos you took at the scene, any communications with the business or the other driver, and any records of your symptoms in the days after the accident, such as texts to family members or entries in a journal, can all help establish a timeline that supports your claim.
Contact an attorney before accepting any offer. Insurance companies sometimes make fast, low offers to people who delayed medical care, counting on the fact that the person is uncertain about whether they have a case at all. Any offer made before your injuries are fully diagnosed and documented is almost certainly inadequate.
You waited to see a doctor and you are worried about your case. Alan Sackrin has handled Florida injury cases for over 40 years, including cases where clients delayed medical care before retaining counsel. Call for a free consultation. No fee unless we win.
What Should You Do?
Go to the doctor, tell the truth, and then file a claim. If the insurance company denies the claim or makes an unreasonable offer, a good piece of advice is to speak with a personal injury lawyer who examines accident facts fairly, applies the law, and effectively directs a jury to a favorable verdict. Most personal injury lawyers who meet these criteria, like Alan Sackrin, will offer a free initial consultation over the phone or in person to answer your questions.
Related:
- I Already Talked to the Insurance Company. Did I Hurt My Case?
- Settling a Florida Personal Injury Claim Without a Lawyer
- Did You Delay Seeing a Doctor Because it Didn’t Hurt That Bad at First? The Case of the 5 Month Back Surgery Delay
- Insurance Adjuster Wants a Recorded Statement. What If You Already Gave One?
- I Already Signed Something After My Slip and Fall. What Does It Mean?
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Do you have questions or comments? Then please feel free to send Alan an email or call him now at (954) 458-8655.
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