Will My Insurance Go Up If I’m In An Accident That’s Not My Fault?
Florida law does not stop your carrier from raising your premium at renewal even when the crash was not your fault, and a not-at-fault loss can still move you into a higher risk tier. People sit in our office in Bonita Springs holding a police report that clearly names the other driver, and the very first thing they want to know is whether their own car insurance is about to punish them for it. The answer is uncomfortable but worth knowing straight.
That is not the answer most people want. But I would rather give you the real one and then walk you through what you can actually do about it.
What Florida law actually says about insurance, fault, and your premium
Three pieces of Florida law sit underneath every conversation about post-accident rate changes. Read them once and most of the mystery goes away.
First, §627.736, Florida Statutes, is the Personal Injury Protection law. PIP means that if you are hurt in a Florida crash, you go through your own auto policy first for the initial $10,000 of medical and wage loss, no matter who caused the wreck. In plain English, your insurer always touches the file in any injury crash, even when the other driver ran the red light. That is why the question of whether your premium moves is never purely academic.
Second, §627.727, Florida Statutes, governs Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage, what we call UM. If the at-fault driver had no policy or a thin one, you collect the rest from your own UM. In plain English, your own carrier ends up paying for the other driver’s fault, and when that happens, the carrier sometimes treats your file the way it would treat any other paid loss come renewal time.
Third, §768.81, Florida Statutes, is Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule, rewritten in 2023. In plain English, if a jury (or, more often, an adjuster) decides you were 50% or more at fault, you recover nothing. Even a small assigned percentage of fault on your side of the ledger gives the carrier a reason to look harder at your risk profile. That is why what you say in the first 48 hours matters so much.
None of those statutes tells your carrier it cannot raise your rate at renewal. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation reviews rate filings, not individual surcharges. Inside the policy term, the rate is locked. After the term ends, the carrier is free to re-underwrite you, and a claim file with your name on it (even a clean, not-at-fault one) is one of the data points it uses.
Five rate-change patterns from our Bonita Springs intake calls
Here is what shows up in our office on the rate-hike question. I am listing these in roughly the order they appear in our intake notes, not in alphabetical order, because the pattern matters.
- Not-at-fault PIP-only claim. Client uses their $10,000 in PIP, the other driver’s carrier pays the bodily injury claim, and the client’s premium stays flat at renewal. This is the most common outcome with a well-run carrier and a clean prior record.
- Not-at-fault claim with UM involvement. The at-fault driver was uninsured or carried minimum limits. The client’s UM pays the gap. About half the time, we see a surcharge appear at renewal even though fault was never disputed.
- Two claims inside three years. The first one was not the client’s fault. The second one was also not the client’s fault. The carrier’s algorithm does not care. Frequency is its own risk signal, and the renewal letter arrives with a meaningful bump.
- Disputed liability. The other driver tells their carrier a different story. Until liability is resolved, our client’s carrier holds the file open and codes it as undetermined. We have seen renewals priced as if the client were at fault, then re-priced down after the dispute resolved.
- Catastrophic loss with policy limits in play. Severe injuries, six-figure medicals, the client’s own UM funds the recovery. A handful of carriers treat this as a non-event because the fault is clear. Others apply a surcharge for three to five years. The carrier you chose three years ago, on price, drives this.
Why the rate question is harder than it looks
The reason this is not a simple yes-or-no question is that three separate decision-makers act on your file at different times, and each one can move your premium.
The first decision-maker is the adjuster who handles the property damage and bodily injury claim. The adjuster assigns liability percentages (the comparative-negligence number), and those percentages get written into the file. Even a 10% assignment against you, on a wreck you did not cause in any meaningful sense, can show up in underwriting later. We see this most often on I-75 chain-reaction crashes through Lee and Collier Counties, where seven cars are involved and every adjuster is trying to push some piece of the loss onto somebody else’s insured.
The second decision-maker is the underwriter, who never speaks to you. The underwriter looks at the file at renewal, sees a claim was paid (whether by your PIP, your UM, or the other carrier through a subrogation arrangement), and runs you through the rate algorithm again. The algorithm does not read the police report. It reads the loss code.
The third decision-maker is the actuary at the state level, whose rate filings move the entire book of business. If Florida had a bad hurricane year, a bad fraud year, or a bad litigation year, every renewal in the state goes up. Yours included. The carrier will quietly attribute that increase to your claim if you ask. The two are usually unrelated. Always ask for the prior year’s declarations page side by side with the new one and look at the base rate.
What to do if your premium goes up after a not-at-fault wreck
Here is the practical action list, drawn from cases we have actually worked, not from a generic checklist.
- Pull both declarations pages. Last year’s and this year’s. Set them side by side at the kitchen table. The line that matters is the base rate per coverage, not the bottom-line premium. The bottom line moves for many reasons. If the base rate went up the same percentage across all your coverages, that is a statewide rate filing, not a surcharge. If only your bodily injury and UM lines moved, that is a surcharge tied to your claim.
- Call your agent and ask for the loss-rated reason code in writing. Carriers have to be able to point to a specific underwriting reason for a surcharge. Make them put it on a letter. I have seen surcharges disappear inside a week once a client politely asked for the written reason and the carrier could not produce a clean one.
- Shop with two carriers the same week. Not three months later. Quotes are based on a snapshot of your record, and the snapshot includes the claim either way. We have had clients save thirty percent in a Tuesday-afternoon phone call when their renewal letter showed a fifteen percent increase.
- Do not let the renewal letter intimidate you out of medical care. I have seen people skip treatment because they were afraid of further claim activity. That is exactly backwards. The medical record is the foundation of any recovery against the at-fault driver, and the rate concern is small compared to an under-documented injury.
- If you used UM, ask whether your carrier is subrogating. If your carrier paid you under UM and is going after the at-fault driver to recover the money, that recovery should, at most carriers, wash the loss out of your record for surcharge purposes. Ask. Get it in writing.
- Watch your driving for the next thirty-six months. Frequency is what triggers the worst rate increases. A second claim inside three years, even one that is not your fault, is what hurts you most.
What we tell every client about the carrier loyalty question
I have had this conversation in our office hundreds of times. Insurance is a business. The carrier collects premiums and pays out the least it can on claims. That is the model, and there is nothing improper about it. What is improper is letting people believe their carrier owes them loyalty in return for years of on-time payments. It does not. When your premium goes up after a wreck you did not cause, the carrier is making a business decision, and you are free to make one of your own.
Florida has roughly fifty admitted auto carriers writing personal lines. The market is competitive. We have driven clients along US-41, otherwise known as the Tamiami Trail, from one agent’s office to another in a single afternoon and watched their annual premium drop. None of that requires a lawyer. What it requires is the willingness to treat the relationship the way the carrier treats it: as a contract, not a marriage.
Key Takeaways
- Florida insurers can re-rate you at renewal for a not-at-fault claim. The state polices rate filings, not individual surcharges.
- Under §627.736, your own PIP pays first in any Florida injury crash, regardless of fault. Your carrier is always in the file.
- Frequency hurts you more than fault. Two not-at-fault claims in three years usually does more damage to your premium than one at-fault claim.
- Pull both declarations pages, compare base rates, and demand the surcharge reason in writing before you accept any renewal increase.
- You are free to shop your policy the day the renewal letter arrives. Florida has dozens of admitted carriers, and loyalty is not rewarded.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. If the other driver was clearly at fault, why would my premium ever go up?
Florida insurers do not need fault to raise a rate at renewal. They underwrite to projected risk, and any claim activity on your record, even a not-at-fault one, can move you into a higher risk tier. They cannot change your premium mid-policy, but the renewal letter is fair game.
Q2. I had to use my PIP after a wreck I did not cause. Does using my own coverage count against me?
Under §627.736, Florida Statutes, every injured person goes through their own PIP first regardless of fault. That is the law, not a choice. Most carriers treat a PIP-only claim more gently than an at-fault bodily injury claim, but some still apply a surcharge at renewal. Read your declarations page and call the carrier before assuming.
Q3. Can I refuse to give my insurer a recorded statement after a not-at-fault crash?
You generally have to cooperate with your own carrier under the policy. You do not have to give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s carrier, and you should not give one to anyone before talking to a lawyer. The questions are written to lock you into a version of events that may not match the medical record three months later.
Q4. What if my carrier raises my rate after a wreck that was not my fault? Am I stuck?
You are not stuck. Florida has dozens of admitted auto carriers, and you can shop on the day the renewal letter arrives. Loyalty is not rewarded in this market. Bring the new declarations page and your driving record to two or three carriers and compare.
Q5. Will hiring a lawyer make my insurance company raise my rates?
Hiring counsel on a third-party claim against the at-fault driver does not, by itself, change the math your own carrier uses at renewal. The claim itself (its severity, the medical bills, whether UM is involved) is what carriers underwrite to. We have represented hundreds of clients across Lee and Collier Counties and have never seen a carrier raise a rate because a lawyer entered the picture.
Talk to our office
If you were hurt in a wreck anywhere in Southwest Florida, whether in Bonita Springs, Estero, Naples, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, or Lehigh Acres, and your carrier is raising your rate after a crash that was not your fault, call our office. We will read your declarations pages with you, walk you through whether the surcharge is real or a statewide rate filing, and tell you what we would do if it were our own renewal letter. Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation. There is no fee unless we recover for you.
About the Author
David B. Pittman, Esq. founded Pittman Law Firm, P.L. and has practiced personal injury law across Southwest Florida since. The firm represents injured clients across Lee and Collier Counties, including Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Naples, Estero, Cape Coral, and Lehigh Acres, with offices in Bonita Springs and Fort Myers, and with a particular focus on insurance-coverage and serious-injury cases.
Two schools made the lawyer: The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina School of Law. The recognition followed: an AV-Preeminent rating at Martindale-Hubbell, and membership in the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
David has held a Florida real estate broker license for twenty-five years, a credential that shapes how the firm reads the property side of premises cases. The firm handles personal injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, serving Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Coral, Estero, and Lehigh Acres, with offices at Windsor Place in Bonita Springs (main) and Fort Myers (satellite). Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation.
The information on this website is for general information only and is not legal advice for any individual case or situation. Reading or receiving this material does not create an attorney-client relationship with Pittman Law Firm, P.L.