By David B. Pittman, Esq. | Pittman Law Firm, P.L.
Going back to work after a Fort Myers car accident does not ruin your injury claim, and it does not erase what the crash did to your body. Most people in Lee County cannot afford to sit at home waiting on an insurance company—you have a mortgage, groceries, and bills to pay. However, the other driver’s insurance adjuster will try to use your work attendance as an excuse to pay you less, unless you and your doctors write down the missed hours, work changes, and daily pain you are pushing through to get your job done.
Key Takeaways
- Working through pain does not cancel your claim: Florida law does not say you have to sit at home unemployed to recover money for doctor bills, physical therapy, surgery, or pain and suffering.
- Your doctor’s notes need to match what happens at work: If you push through pain at your job all week and then tell your doctor you are “doing fine,” the insurance company will claim you aren’t hurt. Tell your doctor the truth about which work tasks make your neck, back, or shoulder flare up.
- You only have 14 days to see a doctor: Under Florida Statute § 627.736, you must see a doctor within 14 days of the wreck to get up to $10,000 in Florida Personal Injury Protection (PIP) benefits—even if you haven’t missed a single shift.
- Missing hours or taking lighter work still counts as lost pay: You don’t have to miss months of work to have a wage claim. Using up vacation or sick days, turning down overtime, losing tips, or switching to lighter work are all real losses we can claim.
- Never ignore a doctor’s work limit: If a doctor at Lee Memorial Hospital or Gulf Coast Medical Center tells you not to lift over 15 pounds, follow that rule. If you hurt yourself worse at work by ignoring doctor’s orders, the insurance company will blame you for the extra damage.
Why Does the Insurance Adjuster Care That You Went Back to Work?
Over the last 30 years of handling injury cases across Fort Myers and Bonita Springs, I have sat across the table from hundreds of clients who tell me the exact same thing: “David, my lower back has been burning ever since I got rear-ended on Colonial Boulevard, but if I don’t show up to work, my family doesn’t eat.”
Insurance adjusters know normal people have bills to pay. Still, the second they see you clocked into your job the day after a wreck on US-41 (Tamiami Trail) or Daniels Parkway, they pull out the same playbook. They look at your timecards and make three excuses to cut your check:
- “If you can work an eight-hour shift, you aren’t really hurt.” They act like showing up to a desk or a job site means you feel great—ignoring the fact that you are taking muscle relaxers at lunch and lying on an ice pack the second you get home.
- “Your job hurt your back, not the car crash.” If you do physical work—in construction, nursing, landscaping, restaurants, or retail—the adjuster will try to blame your bad back or torn shoulder on lifting things at work instead of the driver who hit you at a red light.
- “You didn’t lose any money.” Because your paycheck still shows 40 hours, they claim they don’t owe you a dime for lost pay—even if you burned two weeks of vacation time just to go to physical therapy.
None of those excuses hold up when we put the real proof on paper from day one.
What Is the Difference Between “Showing Up” and “Working Like Normal”?
People sitting on a jury at the Lee County Justice Center in downtown Fort Myers understand the difference between showing up because you need a paycheck and working the way you did before the crash. Our office proves that difference on paper so the insurance company cannot brush it off.
Look at what actually happens when you go to work hurt after a Fort Myers car accident:
- Using Up Vacation and Sick Time (PTO): If you use 40 hours of paid time off to go to MRI scans, spine doctors, and physical therapy, that is your money. You earned that time off, and under Florida law, we demand that the other driver’s insurance company pay you back for the vacation and sick hours you had to use because of their driver.
- Lost Overtime, Tips, and Commissions: Maybe you still work your normal 40 hours, but you had to stop picking up Saturday overtime, you gave up the busy dinner shift because you can’t carry heavy trays, or you missed sales meetings because of doctor visits. Those missing dollars belong in your claim.
- Co-Workers Helping You Out: With your permission, we talk to the people who work next to you. When a boss or co-worker says, “Yes, she came in, but I had to lift all the heavy boxes for her and she had to sit down every half hour,” it kills the insurance company’s story that you were working like normal.
- Hurting Your Future Paychecks: Even if your boss is helping you out right now, what happens next year if your back or neck injury keeps you from taking a better job or forces you out of your trade early? Florida law lets us go after money for how an injury shrinks what you can earn over the rest of your working life.
How Does Skipping Doctor Visits for Work Hurt Your Case?
The biggest mistake working people make after a crash in Fort Myers isn’t going to work—it’s skipping doctor visits because they are “too busy at work.”
Under Florida Statute § 627.736, Florida’s Personal Injury Protection (PIP) law gives you a strict 14-day rule. If you do not see a doctor, hospital, walk-in clinic, or chiropractor within 14 days of the crash, your own car insurance company will pay $0 toward your medical bills.
Even after that first visit, taking long breaks between doctor appointments will hurt your claim. If you get hit on Six Mile Cypress Parkway or Fowler Street in May, go to a walk-in clinic once, and then wait three months to see a specialist because you couldn’t get off work, the adjuster will point to that three-month gap and say, “See? They worked all summer without seeing a doctor. They must have hurt their back doing something else in August.”
If you are still working after a wreck, do three simple things to protect yourself:
- Do not skip physical therapy or doctor visits for work. Plenty of physical therapy offices around Fort Myers and near our main office on Bonita Beach Road open at 7:00 AM or stay open past 5:00 PM so you can get treated before or after your shift.
- Tell your doctor what work actually feels like. Don’t sit on the exam table and say “I’m doing okay” just to be polite. Speak up and say, “Sitting at my desk on Cleveland Avenue for three hours makes pain shoot down my leg,” or “Standing on concrete at the shop makes my neck lock up by lunchtime.” Once your doctor writes that down in your medical chart, your work schedule becomes proof of how hard you are trying—not an excuse to pay you less.
- Get a written work-limit note. If you shouldn’t be lifting over 15 pounds, bending, or climbing ladders, ask your doctor to write that on a work note and hand a copy to your boss.
Why You Must Follow Doctor’s Orders Under Florida’s 2023 Fault Rules
If you ignore your doctor’s limits at work and make your crash injury worse, the insurance company will use Florida’s fault laws against you. Under Florida’s 2023 tort-reform law (Florida Statute § 768.81), if you are found more than 50% at fault for the wreck itself, you get nothing.
On top of that, Florida law says an injured person has to follow reasonable doctor’s orders so they don’t make their own injuries worse. If your doctor tells you not to lift anything over 10 pounds for a month, and you go haul heavy equipment at a job site off Metro Parkway anyway, the insurance company will argue that you caused the need for your back surgery, not their driver. Getting a light-duty note from your doctor protects both your body and your settlement.
How Our Office Helps Working People Across Fort Myers and Bonita Springs
At our firm, we represent working people across Lee and Collier Counties every day—nurses, teachers, tradespeople, servers, small-business owners, and retirees working part-time who can’t afford to put their lives on pause because another driver was looking at a cell phone.
Insurance adjusters love to assume that if someone keeps going to work, they will take a cheap settlement and go away. They change their tune when we show them the medical proof. In past Fort Myers car accident claims handled by our firm where insurers initially pushed back on serious injuries, our office has recovered results including $150,000 and $655,00,000 for injured clients. Every case is different and depends on its own facts and policy limits.)
When you call Pittman Law Firm, P.L., we take the insurance phone calls and paperwork off your plate so you can focus on your job and your doctor visits. We get the paperwork directly from your boss showing your used sick days, missed hours, or lighter work duties, and we make sure your doctors write down the daily pain you are working through.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Will my Florida PIP insurance pay me back if I only miss a few hours of work a week for doctor visits?
Yes. Under Florida Statute § 627.736, your Personal Injury Protection (PIP) pays 60% of your lost pay (up to your $10,000 total PIP limit for medical bills and wages), and that includes a few hours missed here and there for doctor visits or physical therapy. Our office sends a simple one-page wage form to your employer so your insurance company pays you back for those hours.
2. What if I run my own business or work as a 1099 contractor in Fort Myers and can’t stop working?
We see this all the time with local business owners, realtors, lawn crews, and building trades in Lee County. When you work for yourself, you can’t just call in sick without losing customers. Instead of using regular timecards, we show your lost money using your tax returns, canceled job orders, or receipts showing what you had to pay a helper out of your own pocket to do the heavy work you normally do yourself.
3. Can the other driver’s insurance adjuster call my boss in Fort Myers behind my back?
They cannot get your private pay stubs or work file without a form signed by you (or a court subpoena if a lawsuit is filed). That is why you should never sign the medical or work release forms the other driver’s insurance company mails you. Those forms are written to let them dig through 10 years of your private doctor and work records. Let our office send over only the exact pay records that matter.
4. Will the insurance company send someone to film me while I’m working?
If your crash caused a big injury—like one needing spine injections or surgery—insurance companies often pay a private investigator to sit down the street from your house or job with a camera. If you told your doctor you can’t lift a coffee cup, and they record you throwing 50-pound bags of mulch into a truck off I-75, it will wreck your case. But if you tell your doctor the plain truth about what you can and cannot do at work, a camera won’t hurt you one bit.
5. How long do I have to file a Fort Myers car accident claim if I’ve been trying to work through the pain?
Under Florida Statute § 95.11(4)(a), Florida’s 2023 law change cut the deadline to file a car accident lawsuit from four years down to two years from the day of the crash. And remember: to use your $10,000 in Florida PIP coverage, you have to see a doctor within 14 days of the wreck. Waiting months to see if the pain goes away while you keep working is the fastest way to hurt your case.
Working Through the Pain? Talk to Our Firm Before You Talk to the Adjuster
You shouldn’t get shortchanged by an insurance company just because you show up to work and take care of your family. Before you let an adjuster record you on the phone or sign any insurance forms, call our office and let us show you how to protect your claim while you keep your paycheck coming in.
With our main office in Windsor Place at 3525 Bonita Beach Rd, Suite 107, in Bonita Springs and our satellite office in Fort Myers, our family-run firm treats you like a real person—never a case number at a giant TV billboard firm. Call Pittman Law Firm, P.L. today at 239-992-8259 for a free consultation. You pay nothing upfront, and there is never a fee unless we recover money for you.
About the Author
David B. Pittman, Esq. is the founder of Pittman Law Firm, P.L., and has spent more than 30 years representing injured drivers and working families across Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, and Southwest Florida. A graduate of The Citadel (cum laude, 1991) and the University of South Carolina School of Law (1994), David holds an AV-Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell, belongs to the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and has also been a licensed Florida Real Estate Broker for over 25 years.
Legal Disclaimer
The information on this page is for general educational purposes only and is not legal advice for any individual case. Reading this blog or contacting Pittman Law Firm, P.L. through this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every personal injury claim depends on its own facts, medical proof, and insurance limits; past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Main office in Bonita Springs, FL.