There is a particular kind of anger that comes with a hit and run, and it is not really about the car.
Someone made a decision to leave you there. Then, within a day or two, you discover the person you now have to negotiate with is your own insurance company. Our West Palm Beach hit and run accident lawyers step into that second problem, which is the one that actually determines whether your bills get paid.
Rosenthal, Levy, Simon & Sosa Injury Lawyers has been in practice in Palm Beach County since 1985. Consultations are free, we are available 24 hours a day, and we work in English and Spanish. +1 (866) 640-7117.
Table of contents
- The First 72 Hours Decide More Than People Realize
- Who Pays When the Driver Is Never Found?
- Your Own Insurer Becomes the Opposing Party
- What Happens to the Driver Who Left?
- Can a Hit and Run Driver Actually Be Identified?
- Pedestrians and Cyclists Hit by a Driver Who Left
- What If the Driver Turns Up Months Later?
- How Does Florida's Comparative Fault Rule Apply Here?
- How Long Do You Have to Bring a Claim?
- Working With Our West Palm Beach Hit and Run Attorneys
- Hit and Run Questions Our Clients Ask
- They Drove Away. That Does Not End It.
The First 72 Hours Decide More Than People Realize
Get medical care, report the crash, and start preserving what will disappear. Following the right steps to take after a hit-and-run accident is especially important because the window for gathering evidence is short in ways an ordinary crash is not.
Report it to law enforcement immediately. A hit and run is a crime, and a police report is often what your own insurer requires before opening uninsured motorist coverage. A delayed report gives a carrier a reason to question the account.
Get evaluated within 14 days. Florida's no-fault coverage under Section 627.736 applies only if you receive initial care within 14 days of the crash. This deadline does not pause because nobody has been identified.
Canvass for cameras that same week. Doorbell cameras, gas station systems, business exteriors and parking structures. Most overwrite within one to four weeks, and nobody preserves footage for a crash they do not know happened.
Write down everything you remember about the vehicle before the memory blurs. Color, body style, damage, direction of travel, a partial plate, a bumper sticker, the sound. Partial information solves more of these than people assume.
Do not give your carrier a recorded statement yet. Uninsured motorist coverage is your policy, but the claim is adversarial from the moment you file it.
Call +1 (866) 640-7117 the same day if you can. The camera timeline is the reason.
Who Pays When the Driver Is Never Found?
Your own coverage, in a specific order.
Personal Injury Protection first. Florida requires at least $10,000 in PIP, and FLHSMV sets out the requirement here. It pays regardless of fault, which means it pays even though the responsible driver is gone. The full $10,000 applies only where a qualified provider determines you had an emergency medical condition. Otherwise the cap is $2,500.
Uninsured motorist coverage next. Section 627.727 requires insurers to offer UM coverage with every bodily injury liability policy, and you can only decline it in writing. Whether and how your particular UM coverage responds to an unidentified driver depends on your policy language, which is why the first thing we do is read the actual declarations page and policy rather than take an adjuster's summary of it.
Health insurance, med pay and other coverage may fill gaps depending on your situation.
If you were told you have no coverage, get the policy reviewed. People are told this more often than it turns out to be true, and rejections of UM coverage have formal requirements that are not always met.
Your Own Insurer Becomes the Opposing Party
On an uninsured motorist claim, the money comes out of your own carrier's pocket rather than another company's. That single fact changes how the claim is handled.
That reversal surprises people. For years you paid premiums to a company that answered the phone pleasantly. Now that same company is the one deciding whether your injuries are as serious as you say, whether treatment was necessary, and whether the crash even happened the way you described.
The arguments follow a pattern.
They question whether an unidentified vehicle was involved at all. They point to a gap in treatment. They characterize the impact as minor. They ask why the police report is thin, when the report is thin precisely because the driver left.
None of that is unusual and none of it is a reason to accept the first number. It is a reason to have someone build the file the way a liability claim would be built, with medical documentation, scene evidence and, where it exists, video.
What Happens to the Driver Who Left?
Under Florida law, leaving the scene of a crash involving injury is a felony, and the penalties climb with the harm caused.
| Outcome of the crash | Classification under Fla. Stat. 316.027 | Additional consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Injury | Third degree felony | Driver license revoked at least 3 years |
| Serious bodily injury | Second degree felony | Driver license revoked at least 3 years |
| Death | First degree felony | Mandatory minimum 4 years imprisonment |
| Property damage only (Fla. Stat. 316.061) | Second degree misdemeanor | Duty to stop applies regardless of damage amount |
The full text is at Section 316.027.
Worth understanding clearly: a criminal case is not your case. If the driver is caught and prosecuted, that proceeding is run by the State, and restitution ordered there is rarely close to the actual cost of a serious injury. Your civil claim runs on a separate track, with a separate deadline, and it is the one that addresses your medical care and lost income.
Can a Hit and Run Driver Actually Be Identified?
More often than victims expect, and less often than they hope.
What tends to work:
Vehicle debris at the scene. A shattered mirror housing, a grille fragment or a piece of trim frequently carries a part number that narrows the make, model and year.
Paint transfer onto your vehicle, which can be analyzed and matched.
Body shop and parts inquiries in the area, since a damaged vehicle needs repair somewhere.
Private camera canvassing along the likely route of travel, not only at the point of impact.
Public reporting through law enforcement, which is more effective in the first days than the first month.
We work these angles alongside the UM claim rather than instead of it, because waiting to see whether the driver turns up is how deadlines get missed.
Free consultation, no fee unless we recover. +1 (866) 640-7117.
Pedestrians and Cyclists Hit by a Driver Who Left
They make up a disproportionate share of these cases in Palm Beach County, and the coverage questions are different.
Palm Beach County recorded 59 pedestrian and cyclist deaths and more than 141 serious injuries in a single recent year of Sheriff's Office data, ranking sixth among Florida's large counties for serious injuries to people walking and biking. The Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach metro area ranks 17th of the 101 largest US metros for pedestrian deaths. These figures highlight the risks pedestrians face, particularly in a hit-and-run crash involving pedestrian, where identifying the driver and preserving evidence can be especially challenging.
If you were walking or riding when a driver hit you and left, PIP may still apply through your own auto policy or a resident relative's policy even though you were not in a car. Whether it does depends on the household's coverage, and it is one of the first things worth checking rather than assuming you are uncovered.
What If the Driver Turns Up Months Later?
Your claim can shift, and how it shifts depends on what the driver actually has.
If law enforcement identifies the driver and that person carries bodily injury liability coverage, a claim against them may be available alongside or instead of the uninsured motorist claim. If they carry nothing, or carry limits far below your damages, the UM claim generally remains the meaningful source of recovery. Understanding Florida uninsured motorist laws can help clarify when this coverage may provide compensation after a hit-and-run.
Two practical points get missed here.
Do not settle the UM claim without considering the possibility of identification. Releases are written broadly and can affect rights you did not intend to give up.
Do not wait on the criminal case. Prosecutions take months, sometimes longer, and the civil deadline does not pause while the State works. Building the civil claim in parallel is the only approach that protects both.
How Does Florida's Comparative Fault Rule Apply Here?
Your recovery is reduced by whatever share of fault is assigned to you, and eliminated entirely above 50%.
That rule comes from Section 768.81(6), and it applies to an uninsured motorist claim just as it applies to a claim against a known driver. Your own carrier can and will argue you contributed.
In hit and run cases, the arguments are specific to the situation. You were crossing outside a crosswalk. You were riding without lights. You entered the intersection on a stale yellow. Each of those is answerable, and each is easier to answer with scene evidence gathered in the first week than with a recollection given eight months later. This is especially important when investigating hit-and-run accidents in West Palm Beach, where preserving scene evidence early can help address disputes about fault.
Pedestrian and cyclist claims in particular attract these arguments, in a metro area where NHTSA data shows Florida recorded 208 bicyclist deaths and 668 pedestrian deaths in 2024.
How Long Do You Have to Bring a Claim?
Two years from the crash for most Florida negligence claims, under Section 95.11(5)(a). Your UM claim also carries contractual notice requirements set by your own policy, and those can be considerably shorter.
Read that again if you are handling this alone. The policy deadline can arrive long before the statutory one.
Civil suits in Palm Beach County are filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, main courthouse on North Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach.
Working With Our West Palm Beach Hit and Run Attorneys
We have been in practice in Palm Beach County since 1985, from offices in West Palm Beach and Port St. Lucie, in English and Spanish, with a West Palm Beach personal injury lawyer reachable 24 hours a day.
On a hit and run file, the work looks like this:
- Reading your actual policy, including any UM rejection form, rather than accepting a coverage denial by phone
- Canvassing and preserving third-party video in the first week
- Coordinating with investigating officers on debris, paint and part identification
- Documenting injuries to the standard a liability claim requires, because your UM carrier will apply that standard
- Handling all adjuster contact, including the recorded statement request
No fee to consult, and no fee unless we recover for you.
Hit and Run Questions Our Clients Ask
How long does an uninsured motorist claim usually take?
Longer than a straightforward liability claim, because your carrier will want full documentation before it evaluates. Expect the timeline to track your medical treatment rather than the investigation. Carriers also frequently require a formal demand and sometimes appraisal or arbitration under the policy terms, which adds steps a liability claim does not have.
Will filing an uninsured motorist claim raise my premium?
Rating and renewal practices vary by carrier, and a not-at-fault claim is treated differently from an at-fault one. Concern about rates keeps people from using coverage they already paid for, which is the outcome the carrier prefers. Ask us to walk through it before you decide not to file.
I reported it to police two days later. Did I ruin the claim?
Probably not, though it gives a carrier something to raise. Late reports are common when someone drives home shaken and only registers the damage the next morning. File the report as soon as you can, explain the delay honestly, and get the crash documented. A delayed report is a fact to explain, not a bar.
Can I be dropped by my insurer for filing an uninsured motorist claim?
Florida regulates when and how a carrier may cancel or nonrenew a policy, and those rules are worth reviewing against your specific situation. Fear of losing a policy keeps people from using coverage they paid for, which is the outcome the carrier benefits from. Ask us to look at it before you decide not to file.
Does it matter that the other car never actually touched mine?
It can matter a great deal, because coverage for a vehicle that caused a crash without contact turns on the specific wording of your policy. Do not assume either way based on what an adjuster tells you over the phone. Bring us the policy and we will tell you what it actually says.
They Drove Away. That Does Not End It.
The hardest part of a hit and run is the feeling that nothing can be done, because the one person responsible is unknown and unreachable.
Something can usually be done. It just has to happen quickly, on your own policy, with the evidence that is still sitting on a hard drive somewhere along the route that driver took.
If you were hit by a driver who left the scene anywhere in Palm Beach County, call us today. The consultation is free and we answer at any hour.
Rosenthal, Levy, Simon & Sosa Injury Lawyers. Fighting For The Injured Since 1985. +1 (866) 640-7117