Do you have to get hit bythe other car in a car accident to recover PIP Benefits?

As the Florida Statute reads, benefits must be paid for accidental bodily injury caused by physical contact with a motor vehicle, regardless of whether the injured party is occupying a motor vehicle. F.S. 627.736(4)(d)1. For an insurer that is occupying a motor vehicle, they do not have to necessarily show that the injury was caused by physical contact with the vehicle. It may be enough to show that the injury was, in fact, caused (had a relation/nexus) by a motor vehicle. Again, the difficulty arises when the plaintiff was injured while not an occupant of a self propelled vehicle because there is a physical contact requirement.

A Florida case that presented the question of coverage in an instance where there was no physical contact with the vehicles was Arnold v. South Carolina Insurance Co., 425 So.2d 1164 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983). In Arnold, two co-workers were crossing the street when one of the co-workers pushed the other out of the way of a rebounding vehicle from the collision, which caused him to fall Florida. Although the injuries were caused by the fall and not because of contact with the vehicles, the court permitted the victim to recover PIP benefits. This leads some to believe that as long as there is enough a connection between the vehicle and the injury, the vehicle doesn’t have to be the sole cause to recover for injuries under PIP benefits and there isn’t necessarily a physical contact requirement with the vehicle. Think of it as the old saying goes, “There is more than one way to skin a cat!” However, just because a motor vehicle is involved is not enough to gain PIP benefits according to one Florida case. In Smith v. Fortune Insurance Co., 506 So.2d 73 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), an injured bicyclist couldn’t recover when he swerved to avoid a collision with an oncoming truck. The court said that the bicyclist couldn’t recover because the truck didn’t come in “contact” with the bicycle. This differs from the ruling in the Arnold case where the court allowed the plaintiff to recover PIP benefits without physical contact. These inconsistencies all have some reasoning behind them, and by contacting an experienced Palm Beach County accident attorney after you have been injured in an accident, you can be provided with the reasoning that will help you prevail in your claim.