Pros and Cons of Using Your Own Insurance Carrier for Car Damage After an Accident

By David B. Pittman, Esq. — Founder, Pittman Law Firm, P.L. | Last updated May 12, 2026

Here is what the at-fault carrier does first: they wait to hear from their insured. Until the driver who hit you gives a statement, the other insurance company has a reason to slow-walk acceptance of liability. That is when clients call our office and ask whether to just open a claim under their own collision coverage instead. The answer depends on three things — who the crash report points at, how serious the vehicle damage is, and whether you were also hurt.

Florida law actually drives most of this math, and I want to walk through what the statutes say, the patterns we see in our office on the I-75 corridor through Lee and Collier Counties and along US-41, and the practical trade-offs that shape the decision.

What Florida law actually says about a property damage claim

Before you decide which carrier to file with, it helps to know the rules that govern the decision. A handful of Florida statutes do most of the work.

• §768.81, Florida Statutes — modified comparative negligence. Since the 2023 tort reform, a Florida plaintiff who is more than 50 percent at fault for a crash recovers nothing. In plain English: if a jury or an adjuster decides you were 51 percent or more responsible, the other driver’s insurance does not owe you a dime — for your car or your back. That single line of law changes how the at-fault carrier evaluates your claim and is one of the biggest reasons to be careful about what you say to an adjuster early on.
• §95.11(4)(a), Florida Statutes — two-year statute of limitations. The 2023 reform cut the deadline to file a negligence lawsuit for bodily injury from four years down to two. Property damage still sits at four years, but in real life the two clocks are tied together. If you wait too long to sort out the bumper, you risk letting evidence go stale on the injury side.
• §627.736, Florida Statutes — Personal Injury Protection (PIP). PIP is your own carrier’s no-fault medical layer — up to $10,000 for medical and lost wages regardless of who caused the crash. PIP does not pay for your car. People mix the two up constantly. Property damage on your own policy is a separate coverage called collision.
• §627.727, Florida Statutes — uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. If the other driver carried no insurance, or not enough, your UM coverage steps in. Florida is one of the worst states in the country for uninsured drivers, and on the I-75 corridor through Lee and Collier Counties we see this every week.
• §316.066, Florida Statutes — the crash report. Any Florida crash with injury, death, or property damage that needs a tow has to be reported. The crash report is the document every adjuster looks at first. If law enforcement marked the other driver at fault on that report, your decision tree gets a lot simpler.

None of these statutes tell you which carrier to file with. They shape what each carrier is allowed to do, and what happens if the case ends up in front of a judge.

Four situations that drive this decision in Lee and Collier Counties

Almost every property damage call our office takes falls into one of four buckets. Knowing which bucket you are in is more useful than any blanket rule.

• The other driver is clearly at fault and admits it on scene. Their carrier accepts liability within a few days, your car is at the body shop, and the only real question is whether the repair number is fair. Here you usually do not need your own collision coverage. The at-fault carrier owes for the repair, the rental, and, often, the diminished value.
• The other driver is clearly at fault but their carrier is dragging. The other side’s adjuster cannot reach their insured for a statement, or the insured has gone quiet. Liability is not accepted. The shop is asking who is paying. This is where your own collision coverage earns its keep. You pay your deductible, the car gets fixed, and your carrier subrogates against the at-fault driver later. If they collect, you get the deductible back.
• Fault is genuinely shared or disputed. The other driver says you turned into them; you say they ran the light. With the 2023 §768.81 change, an adjuster who believes you were more than half at fault can deny outright. Filing under your own policy here is often the only way to keep moving.
• The at-fault driver has no insurance or not enough to cover the loss. Florida’s uninsured rate is high enough that this is the bucket that catches the most people by surprise. Your own UM coverage and collision coverage are what stand between you and an empty pocket.

Where the property-damage path gets complicated

On paper a property damage claim sounds clean. The car is worth X, the repair is Y, somebody pays. In practice there are several wrinkles that catch clients off guard.

The first is total-loss math. Once a repair estimate climbs above roughly 75 to 80 percent of the vehicle’s actual cash value, the carrier will call it a total loss and pay you the ACV minus your deductible. That number is almost always lower than what people think their car is worth. Three rounds of negotiation over ACV is normal, not a sign anyone is being unreasonable.

The second is diminished value. A two-year-old SUV that gets repaired correctly still loses resale value once a crash shows up on its history report. Florida recognizes diminished value as a recoverable element against the at-fault carrier, but your own carrier almost never pays it on a first-party claim. That alone can be a several-thousand-dollar reason to push the at-fault path even when it is slower.

The third is rental coverage. Your policy’s rental reimbursement caps out fast — often $30 a day for 30 days. If the shop is backed up and the part is on backorder, you can run out of rental days before the repair is done. The at-fault carrier’s rental obligation is broader, but it only starts once they accept liability.

The fourth is the way property damage and injury claims interact. If you also got hurt, the property damage adjuster’s notes become part of the file the injury adjuster reads. A recorded statement you gave about how the crash happened, taken so the bumper could get fixed, will show up later when somebody is evaluating a herniated disc. That is the moment a lot of clients call us — after the property damage is closed and they realize they signed something that hurts the injury side.

A Bonita Springs bicycle case from our files

A case I think about often involved a retired Bonita Springs cyclist — a man in his late sixties who rode several mornings a week along the side streets near US-41. A driver pulled out of a side road without looking, clipped him, and threw him from the bike. He came in with a fractured shoulder, road-rash injuries, and the kind of head-to-toe soreness that does not show up clean on a first ER visit. The driver’s carrier opened a property damage file on the bike right away. The injury side was a different story.

What I remember most about the early weeks is how easy it would have been for him to give an unguarded statement to the other carrier just to get the bike replaced. We did not let that happen. He went through about six months of physical therapy.

We settled the case in full inside of six months. He kept his focus on rehab and on getting back on a bike that did not scare him. We handled the calls from the adjusters. There was nothing magic about the result — it came from being careful about what got said in the first thirty days, documenting the orthopedic work properly, and refusing to let a property damage conversation contaminate the injury file.

What to do if you are deciding which policy to file under

This is the action list I give clients when they call us from the shoulder of the road or from the body shop’s waiting room. It comes from watching how these decisions play out, not from a checklist.

• Pull the crash report before you call any adjuster. If the report shows the other driver at fault, your starting position is stronger and you may not need to touch your own collision coverage. If the report is silent or shows shared fault, your own policy is probably the faster path.
• Take pictures of the whole scene, not just your bumper. Final-resting positions of both cars, debris field, skid marks, the other driver’s plate, the intersection signs. I have had cases turn on a single photo of a stop sign that the other driver later claimed they did not see.
• Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s carrier until you have read the crash report and, if you are injured, talked to a lawyer. You are not required to. The property damage will move without it.
• Ask the shop for the line-item estimate, not the bottom number. Carriers negotiate line items, not totals. If your shop and their adjuster disagree on a panel or a procedure, that is a supplement conversation — normal, not a fight.
• If you have any neck, back, or head symptoms, get evaluated within 14 days. PIP under §627.736 requires medical attention inside that window or the no-fault benefit shrinks dramatically. People who tough it out for three weeks regret it.
• Save the deductible decision for last. Filing under your collision coverage means writing a check for the deductible up front. If liability is clear and the at-fault carrier is responsive, that money can stay in your pocket. If liability is murky, paying the deductible to get the car back on the road is usually worth it — your carrier will chase the recovery.
• Keep the property damage and the injury files coordinated. Especially if both are open with different adjusters. The two conversations talk to each other behind the scenes whether you want them to or not.

Key Takeaways

• There is no universal answer. The right carrier to file with depends on whether liability is accepted, how big the loss is, and whether you were also injured.
• Florida’s 2023 reforms — the 50 percent bar under §768.81 and the two-year deadline under §95.11(4)(a) — make the early conversations with adjusters higher-stakes than they used to be.
• Your own collision coverage is a speed tool. It moves the repair forward while your carrier chases the at-fault side for reimbursement of the repair and your deductible.
• Diminished value and full rental costs usually only come from the at-fault carrier — your own carrier almost never pays diminished value on a first-party claim.
• If you were hurt, do not let the property damage tail wag the injury dog. A statement given to settle a bumper can show up later in a back-injury file.

Frequently Asked Questions

If the other driver was clearly at fault, why would I ever use my own insurance for the property damage?

Speed, mostly. The at-fault carrier can take weeks to accept liability, especially if their insured has not given a statement. Your own collision coverage can move while the liability fight plays out, and your carrier then chases the other side for reimbursement of the repair and your deductible. If they recover, you get the deductible back.

Will my premium go up if I file a property damage claim that was not my fault?

Florida law restricts surcharges for not-at-fault losses, but carriers can still re-rate at renewal based on overall claim activity. I tell clients to expect a possible bump on the next renewal even when fault is clean, and to weigh that against the convenience of moving repairs forward now.

Do I have to use the body shop my insurance company suggests?

No. Under Florida law you choose the shop. The carrier can write an estimate and pay what they consider reasonable, but they cannot force you into a network shop. If your shop’s number is higher, that becomes a supplement conversation, not a deal-breaker.

What is diminished value and can I recover it after a Florida crash?

Diminished value is the drop in your vehicle’s resale price after a repaired wreck shows up on the history report. Florida recognizes it as a third-party claim against the at-fault driver’s carrier in most cases. Your own carrier will rarely pay it. That is one reason the at-fault path, slow as it is, sometimes recovers more dollars than your own policy will.

Does the two-year statute of limitations apply to property damage too?

The two-year window under §95.11(4)(a) applies to negligence claims for bodily injury after the 2023 reform. Property damage from a vehicle crash in Florida still falls under a four-year limit. Even so, treat the file as a single case — if you have injuries, your two-year clock controls the timing, and the property damage usually has to be sorted long before that.

Talk to our office before you sign anything

If you are weighing whether to file under your own policy or push the at-fault carrier — or if you have already done one and want a second set of eyes on the file before it closes — call our office. We talk through these calls every day. There is no charge for the conversation, and there is no fee unless we recover for you.

Pittman Law Firm, P.L. — 239-992-8259. Free consultation. We handle the carriers so you can focus on the car and, if you were hurt, on getting better.

About the Author

Pittman Law Firm, P.L. is based across Lee and Collier Counties and has handled personal injury cases for more than thirty years under founder David B. Pittman, Esq. The firm represents injured clients across Lee and Collier Counties — Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Naples, Estero, Cape Coral, and Lehigh Acres — with offices in Bonita Springs and Fort Myers, and a particular focus on insurance-coverage and serious-injury cases.

Between undergraduate at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina and a JD from the University of South Carolina School of Law, David built the foundation for a personal injury practice that now carries AV-Preeminent status with 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.

Disclaimer: The information on this page is for general information only and is not legal advice for any particular case. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship with Pittman Law Firm, P.L. Florida Bar advertising notice.