Paying Your Deductible When the Other Driver Ran the Light

Attorney Answer

If you repair the car through your own collision coverage you normally pay the deductible up front and get it back later; if you claim directly against the other driver's insurance instead, there is no deductible at all. Which road you take is the whole answer, and in practice many people use both.

Start with what the other driver was required to carry. Fla. Stat. § 324.022(1) provides: "Every owner or operator of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state shall establish and maintain the ability to respond in damages for liability on account of accidents arising out of the use of the motor vehicle in the amount of $10,000 because of damage to, or destruction of, property of others in any one crash." That $10,000 of property damage liability is the pocket a claim for your repairs runs against when the other driver caused the crash.

Notice what the statute does not require. For most private cars, Florida mandates no bodily injury liability coverage at all before a crash. The 10/20/10 figures people repeat come from § 324.021(7), which defines the proof of financial responsibility a driver has to show after a crash or a judgment — a sanction track, not a pre-crash insurance minimum. So property damage coverage is usually there; coverage for an injury may not be.

The third-party route. You claim against the other driver's insurer under that liability coverage. There is no deductible, because it is not your policy. The trade-off is that the other insurer gets to form its own view of fault first, and it can dispute or delay. A red-light case is exactly the kind that gets disputed when the evidence is two drivers disagreeing. A citation issued to the other driver helps, but a traffic citation does not by itself decide a civil claim.

The first-party route. You claim on your own collision coverage. Your insurer pays the repair minus your deductible, generally without waiting for fault to be sorted out. Your insurer then pursues the at-fault driver's insurer to recover what it paid, and your deductible is customarily included in what it seeks and returned to you, in whole or in part, if and when it recovers. That reimbursement is real, but it is neither guaranteed nor fast, and if fault ends up shared the refund can be partial.

If the car turns out to be a total loss rather than a repair, § 626.9743(5) governs how a first-party total loss is settled on an actual cash value or replacement basis, and one of the permitted methods is a cash settlement based on the actual cost to purchase a comparable motor vehicle, including sales tax where it applies. If the number seems low, ask which comparable vehicles it came from.

What you can do

1. Report the crash to your own insurer even if you intend to claim against the other driver. Reporting is not the same as making a claim, and late notice creates its own problems.

2. Open a property damage claim with the other driver's insurer and write down the claim number and the adjuster's name.

3. If you use your own collision coverage, tell your insurer in writing that you want your deductible included in whatever it recovers from the other side, and keep a copy.

4. Get the crash report number from the investigating agency, and keep your photographs, every repair estimate and the final invoice.

5. If the other insurer denies fault, or the settlement number is far below your estimates, ask a Florida attorney to look at it before you accept anything. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. A Florida negligence claim, including one for damage to your car, runs under Fla. Stat. § 95.11, and which period applies depends on the date of the crash: for accidents before March 24, 2023, the former four-year period applied, and the Legislature shortened the period for accidents after that date. Your own policy also imposes its own notice and proof-of-loss deadlines, which are much shorter than any of that and are set by the contract rather than the statute. Do not take a date from this page — have a Florida attorney confirm the deadlines that apply to your facts.