Hurt in a Crash on a Trip to New York? Your Florida Auto Policy Only Half-Follows You North

Brevard County is full of people with a New York address in their past. Parents still on Long Island, kids at Stony Brook or Hofstra, a sister in Nassau County, the summer wedding in Suffolk. Every June the northbound I-95 traffic tells the story. What almost nobody thinks about on that drive is that the moment you cross the state line, the rules for a car crash change. Both states call themselves “no-fault.” Beyond the label, they are not the same system, and the differences cost Floridians real money every year.

I have practiced personal injury and insurance law on Long Island for more than twenty years, and I am admitted in Florida as well as New York, which is rarer than it should be. A meaningful share of the people who call my office after a crash are not from New York at all. They were visiting, and they are trying to run a New York claim from a kitchen table in Melbourne or Cocoa. Here is what I tell them.

Same word, different math

Florida’s personal injury protection benefit is $10,000. It pays 80 percent of medical bills and 60 percent of lost wages, you have to start treatment within 14 days of the crash, and if a provider does not find an “emergency medical condition,” the medical benefit shrinks to $2,500. Those numbers come from Florida Statute 627.736, and every Space Coast driver has lived with them since the 2012 reform took effect.

New York’s version is called basic economic loss, and the number is $50,000 per person. It pays medical bills at the state fee schedule and lost earnings at 80 percent, up to $2,000 a month for three years. There is no 14-day treatment rule. There is instead a 30-day rule that matters more: the written application for no-fault benefits has to reach the right insurance company within 30 days of the accident. Miss it without a good reason and the carrier will deny every bill, and New York courts enforce that.

So the first thing a Floridian hurt in New York should know is that the benefit pool is five times deeper than the one at home, and the clock to claim it is shorter than the one for the lawsuit.

Your Florida policy follows you, if your insurer is licensed in New York

Florida drivers assume their PIP goes with them. In New York it does something better. Insurance Law section 5107 requires any insurer licensed to do business in New York to provide New York’s minimum first-party benefits whenever a car it insures is driven in the state, no matter where the policy was written. Practitioners call it the “deemer.” If you drove your own car up from Brevard and your carrier is one of the national companies, your Florida policy is deemed to carry the $50,000 New York benefit while you are here.

Out-of-state carriers try to wriggle out of this. I have written about the cases where they argued they had no ties to New York and lost. The statute is clear, and a carrier that sells auto insurance here is bound by it.

If you flew up and were a passenger in a relative’s car, a rental, or a rideshare, the no-fault carrier is the insurer of the vehicle you were in. If you were on foot or on a bicycle, it is the insurer of the vehicle that hit you. Getting the application to the wrong company inside the 30 days does not count. Getting it to the right company on day 31 is a fight you may lose.

Pain and suffering: two thresholds, two very different tests

Both states limit lawsuits for pain and suffering to people with a “serious” injury. The definitions are not alike.

Florida Statute 627.737 requires a permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, significant and permanent scarring, significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, or death. A broken wrist that heals is not, by itself, a threshold injury in Florida.

New York’s Insurance Law section 5102(d) lists categories. A fracture is on the list. So is a permanent consequential limitation, a significant limitation of use of a body function or system, and an injury that keeps you from substantially all of your daily activities for 90 of the first 180 days. New York threshold litigation is a numbers game fought with range-of-motion measurements and treating-doctor affirmations. A documented 20 percent loss of neck flexion has carried the day in the Appellate Division. A gap in treatment, on the other hand, is the defense’s favorite exhibit, which is why I tell out-of-state clients to keep treating when they get home and to make sure the New York records and the Florida records tell one continuous story.

There is also a New York path most people never hear about. If your economic losses run past the $50,000 no-fault pool, the excess is recoverable from the at-fault driver without meeting the serious-injury threshold at all. For a serious hospitalization, that matters.

The fault rules just converged, and not in the injured person’s favor

Florida changed its fault rule in 2023. Under Florida Statute 768.81(6), a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing.

New York held out until this spring. For decades it was a pure comparative negligence state: 70 percent at fault, you still recovered 30 percent. In May 2026 the Governor’s budget added CPLR section 1411(b). In a motor-vehicle personal injury case governed by the no-fault article, a claimant whose fault is greater than the defendant’s (or the combined fault of all defendants) is now barred. It applies to lawsuits filed on or after May 27, 2026, regardless of when the crash happened. Outside car cases New York is still pure comparative, but for the crash you had on the Southern State Parkway, the rule is now effectively the same one you have at home.

What that means in practice: the adjuster’s incentive to pin fault on you is now identical in both states, and the recorded statement they ask for on day two is where that work gets done. Decline it politely. Give the police the facts and give the insurers your lawyer’s phone number.

Deadlines that differ from Florida’s

Florida gave you two years to sue for negligence after 2023. New York still gives you three (CPLR 214). Do not let the longer window relax you, because New York has shorter ones layered in front of it:

•  30 days to file the no-fault application, discussed above.

•  10 days to file your own accident report, form MV-104, with the DMV if anyone was hurt or damage exceeded $1,000. Drivers who skip it, or fill it out in a way that contradicts the police report, hand the defense a gift.

•  90 days to serve a notice of claim if a county bus, a village police car, or any other municipal vehicle was involved. Miss it and the case against the municipality is usually over.

A New York crash is a New York case

The lawsuit will be filed in the county where the crash happened, under New York law, in front of a New York judge. A Florida lawyer cannot appear there without being admitted, and the no-fault and threshold rules above are a specialty even among New York lawyers. If the crash was in Nassau or Suffolk, you want a personal injury lawyer Long Island courts see every week, one who can handle the case while you are back on the Space Coast. Depositions and most conferences are done remotely now. You should not have to fly north for anything but your own medical care and, if it comes to it, trial.

Before you leave New York

1. Get the police accident report number and photograph the scene, the cars, and your visible injuries before the rental goes back.

2. See a doctor the same day, even if you feel fine. Adrenaline hides injuries and insurers treat a three-day gap as proof nothing happened.

3. Identify the right no-fault carrier and get the application filed inside 30 days.

4. File your MV-104 inside 10 days.

5. Do not give a recorded statement to anyone’s insurer.

6. Keep treating when you get home, and keep every record.

None of this is legal advice for your specific situation, and every case turns on its facts. But a Floridian who knows the state line changes the rules is already ahead of the adjuster who is counting on the fact that you do not.

Jason Tenenbaum is the principal of the Law Office of Jason Tenenbaum, P.C., a personal injury and employment law firm in Huntington Station, New York. He is admitted in New York and Florida and is the author of a long-running blog on New York no-fault and appellate practice.

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