Recovering After a Crash With an Unlicensed Driver

Attorney Answer

Your realistic recovery here runs through insurance — most likely your own — rather than through the other driver's pocket. And her license status does not decide who caused the crash.

Start with what Florida actually requires drivers 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, plus the personal injury protection coverage Florida separately requires, is the mandate. For most private cars Florida does not require bodily-injury liability coverage before a crash at all. So even a licensed driver may have nothing available to pay your injuries, and a driver cited for having no license often has none either.

Your own coverages matter more here. The first is PIP. Section 627.736(1) requires a policy to provide personal injury protection to the named insured, resident relatives, people operating the insured vehicle, passengers and certain struck pedestrians, up to a limit of $10,000 in medical and disability benefits and $5,000 in death benefits. It pays regardless of who caused the crash. But it comes with a hard trigger in § 627.736(1)(a), which conditions medical benefits on the following: "Eighty percent of all reasonable expenses for medically necessary medical, surgical, X-ray, dental, and rehabilitative services, including prosthetic devices and medically necessary ambulance, hospital, and nursing services if the individual receives initial services and care pursuant to subparagraph 1. within 14 days after the motor vehicle accident." Fourteen days. That clock is running now.

The second is uninsured motorist coverage. Section 627.727(1) requires UM coverage in every Florida policy that provides bodily-injury liability coverage, unless it is rejected: "However, the coverage required under this section is not applicable when, or to the extent that, an insured named in the policy makes a written rejection of the coverage on behalf of all insureds under the policy." If you did not sign a rejection, you may have UM coverage you do not know about, and it is designed for exactly this situation.

On fault: no one being ticketed for the red light does not mean fault is undecided. Officers ticket what they can prove at the roadside; civil fault is decided later, on the whole record. Her citation for driving without a license is a separate offense from causing this crash, and nothing about who she is decides fault. If the insurers say you share some blame, the effect turns on the accident date: for crashes before March 24, 2023, fault reduced recovery in proportion and barred it at no percentage; for crashes on or after that date, § 768.81(6) bars recovery entirely for a party found more than 50 percent at fault. Which applies to yours is a lawyer's question.

Whether the delivery platform carried coverage reaching this crash is a question this page cannot answer. Florida's rideshare statute sets insurance tiers for companies that arrange rides for passengers, and a "prearranged ride" under § 627.748(1)(b) is the transportation of a rider, which a food-delivery run is not. Any delivery-platform coverage would come from its own contracts, and a lawyer needs to read them.

What you can do

1. Open a PIP claim with your own auto insurer and get medically evaluated now. Under § 627.736(1)(a), PIP medical benefits require initial services and care within 14 days of the crash.

2. Ask your insurer for your declarations page and check whether it shows uninsured motorist coverage, and at what limits.

3. Request the crash report from the agency that responded, and keep the totaled-vehicle paperwork, photos and the report number together.

4. Ask a local lawyer about a UM claim and about whether the delivery platform she was working for carried coverage that applies.

5. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with someone who can ask you questions is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. A claim from a crash is a negligence claim, and in Florida the deadline depends on the date of the accident. For accidents on or after March 24, 2023, Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a) allows two years for an action founded on negligence. For accidents before that date, the former four-year period under § 95.11 applied. Which one covers you turns on when the crash happened, and other facts can change the answer. Have a Florida attorney read the dates on your file before you rely on any of this. This page does not calculate your deadline.