Who are the persons covered with a right to recover PIP benefits?

No matter what kind of policy you have, under Florida statute every policy is required to provide coverage for certain classes of people. These include:

• Named insured
• Relatives living in the insured’s household
• Anyone driving the insured vehicle
• Passengers in the motor vehicle
• Other persons struck by such motor vehicle and suffering bodily injury while not an occupant of a self-propelled vehicle

These categories are what insurance defense attorneys try to exclude injured parties from so they do not have to pay insurance claims. The job of the best accident attorney is to make sure that the injured party is not excluded from the class they belong to, by way of the insurance contract entered into with the insurance carrier. Often, the most argued about class of people are those that have were not passengers in a vehicle but were injured by a vehicle. In one interesting case, the passenger on a “jitney” who was injured when the jitney was struck from the rear by a vehicle driven by an insured was unable to recover PIP benefits. Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. v. Watson, 696 So.2d 543 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997). The reason behind the insurance carrier’s denial was because the statute did not extend coverage to people injured while occupying a self-propelled vehicle. What you and I think should obviously be a self propelled vehicle is not what either the big insurance companies who have influenced insurance law have made it to mean. To really understand an insurance policy, you must really understand the definitions that the insurance industry provides for certain key words that the ordinary layperson does not use on a daily business. My opinion is that they do this on purpose so you don’t understand what you are purchasing and to secure their BOTTOM LINE. The language of your particular policy is just as important as the language of the statute. Particularly because medical payment benefits will not automatically be paid out, the specific language of the policy should be read and understood. In Wright v. Auto-Owners Insurance Co., 739 So.2d 180 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999), a passenger was injured on his motorcycle when he was struck by an insured driving a car. That passenger was allowed to recover because the insured’s policy did not limit PIP coverage for injuries sustained by an insured struck by a motor vehicle to pedestrians. Understanding your right when you have been injured in a Palm Beach County car accident should be taken seriously by contacting an experienced Palm Beach County accident attorney.