How to File a Personal Injury Claim: Process, Proof, and Deadlines

What a personal injury claim actually is

A claim and a lawsuit are two different things, and conflating them is the mistake that costs people the most. A claim is an administrative demand made to an insurer or a self-insured organisation. It is handled by an adjuster, governed by the terms of a policy and by state insurance regulation, and it has no judge in it. A lawsuit is a filing in court, governed by the statute of limitations and the rules of civil procedure. The overwhelming majority of personal injury matters are resolved at the claim stage and never become a lawsuit at all.

That matters for how you spend your effort. At the claim stage nobody is testing your credibility under oath; an adjuster is reading a file and pricing the risk that the file would do well in front of a jury. What is in the file is therefore almost everything. A strong set of facts with a thin file gets a thin offer.

This page covers the claim: notice, proof, procedure, timing, denial. If what you are trying to work out is what a particular injury tends to be worth once liability is settled, that is a separate question and we keep it on a separate site — TortAdvisor handles case values, verdict and settlement data, and the lawsuit side.

Fell on someone else’s property? See how to file a slip and fall claim, including what the owner must have known and the short deadlines for public property.

Finding the right payer

Almost every stalled claim we see stalled because it was sent to the wrong place first. The policy that pays is determined by the activity that caused the injury, not by whose name is on the injury.

Dog bites are paid under the owner’s homeowners or renters liability coverage. Not auto, not health, and not the owner’s pocket unless the loss runs past the limit. The Insurance Information Institute puts typical liability limits at $100,000 to $300,000 and notes that the owner is personally responsible for anything above the limit — which is why the limit, not the injury, is often what caps a dog bite claim.

Medical negligence is paid by the provider’s malpractice carrier, but you do not reach that carrier by calling it. Florida and many other states route the claim through a statutory presuit process first, and a phone call outside that process accomplishes nothing and tolls nothing.

Falls, assaults and injuries on business property go to the occupier’s commercial general liability insurer, which is frequently not the property owner. Ask who the premises liability carrier is in writing and keep the answer.

Your own health insurance usually pays the treatment bills while the claim is open and then asserts a lien or a subrogation interest against anything you recover. That is normal, but it has to be accounted for before you agree to a number, because the lien is paid out of the settlement rather than on top of it.

1. Identify the policy. Get the carrier name, the policy number and the limits in writing. For a dog bite, the owner’s declarations page. For a provider, the malpractice carrier.
2. Give written notice. Dated, in writing, to the carrier and to the person or entity responsible. Keep proof of delivery — in Florida medical negligence, the method of delivery is what starts the clock.
3. Preserve the evidence that disappears. Signage, scene conditions, surveillance footage, the animal control report. Most of this is gone within a fortnight.
4. Finish treatment, or reach a stable prognosis. A claim submitted mid-treatment is priced on the treatment completed so far.
5. Submit the demand package. Records, bills, wage documentation, and a statement of how the conduct caused the injury.
6. Negotiate on the record. Written offers and written responses. Verbal positions change.
7. File suit before the deadline if it has not resolved. The limitations period runs whether or not the adjuster is still being friendly.

Dog bite claims: how liability is decided

Dog bite liability is one of the few areas of personal injury where a statute does most of the work for the claimant. Florida’s is a good worked example because it is a strict-liability statute, and the mechanics it sets out are the mechanics an adjuster will apply.

Under Fla. Stat. § 767.04, the owner of a dog is liable for damages to a person bitten while that person is in a public place, or lawfully on private property — including the owner’s own property. The statute imposes that liability “regardless of the former viciousness of the dog” or the owner’s knowledge of it. In plain terms: you do not have to prove the dog had bitten anyone before, and you do not have to prove the owner should have known. That removes the single hardest element from the claim.

Three qualifications matter in practice, and all three are the first things a carrier looks for.

Lawfully on the property. The statute treats a person as lawfully on private property if they are there performing a legal duty — a postal carrier, a meter reader — or at the invitation of the owner, express or implied. A trespasser falls outside the statute.

Your own share of the fault. If the bitten person’s negligence contributed to the bite, § 767.04 reduces the owner’s liability by that percentage. Teasing the animal, ignoring a restraint, reaching over a fence — the adjuster will look for it, and the reduction is applied directly to the recovery.

Finally, § 767.04 states that this remedy is cumulative with other statutory and common-law remedies, so the statutory claim does not displace an ordinary negligence claim against, for example, a landlord or a kennel.

Strict liability is not universal. A substantial number of states still apply a knowledge-based or “one bite” rule, under which the claim depends on showing the owner knew or should have known the animal was dangerous. Which rule governs is decided by where the bite happened, not where you live, and it changes what the claim has to prove. Check your own state before assuming either model.

For the full step-by-step process, including the first day and the defenses insurers raise, see how to file a dog bite claim.

Medical negligence: the presuit process

Medical negligence is the opposite of a dog bite claim. There is no statute doing the claimant’s work; there is a statute setting out a sequence of mandatory steps, and skipping one of them can end the claim on procedure rather than on merit. Florida’s presuit scheme in Chapter 766 is among the most detailed, and it is worth walking through precisely.

Before notice: the expert opinion

Under Fla. Stat. § 766.203(2), the claimant must submit a “verified written medical expert opinion” corroborating reasonable grounds for the claim, at the time the notice of intent is mailed. This is the gate. It means the medical review has to be complete, and an expert has to have committed their opinion to writing under oath, before the process formally starts. Obtaining the complete chart and finding a qualified reviewer is usually the longest stage of the whole claim, and it happens before any deadline-tolling benefit kicks in.

The notice of intent

Section 766.106(2)(a) requires the claimant to notify each prospective defendant of an intent to initiate litigation, after completing the presuit investigation. The permitted delivery methods are specific: certified mail with return receipt, U.S. Postal Service mail with a tracking number, an interstate commercial carrier with a tracking number, or a person authorised to serve process. The method matters because it determines when tolling begins.

Section 766.106(2)(c) sets out what the notice must include, to the extent available: a list of all known health care providers seen for the injuries after the alleged negligence; a list of known providers who treated or evaluated the claimant in the two years before it; copies of the medical records the expert relied on in signing the affidavit; and the executed authorisation form under § 766.1065. A notice missing these is an invitation to a procedural fight.

The 90-day period

Section 766.106(3)(a) is unambiguous: “A suit may not be filed for a period of 90 days after notice is delivered to any prospective defendant.” During that window the defendant or its insurer is required by § 766.106(3)(b) to respond with one of three things — a rejection of the claim, a settlement offer, or an offer of arbitration on damages only with liability admitted.

If nothing comes back, that is itself an answer. Under § 766.106(3)(c), failure to reply within 90 days after receipt is deemed a final rejection of the claim. Silence does not trap the claim; it clears the way to file. And under § 766.106(3)(d), a claimant’s attorney must advise the claimant in writing within 30 days of any response received.

What happens to the deadline

Section 766.106(4) tolls the statute of limitations as to all prospective defendants upon mailing, for the mailed and carrier methods, and from the process server’s first attempt at service for that method — continuing through the 90-day period. The parties may stipulate to extend the period, and tolling continues through the extension. If negotiations terminate during an extension, the claimant has 60 days or the remainder of the limitations period, whichever is greater, in which to file.

Informal discovery inside the window

The 90 days are not dead time. Section 766.106(6)(b) authorises informal discovery by both sides: unsworn statements of the parties, usable only for presuit screening; requests for documents and things, due within 20 days; physical and mental examinations, generally one examination for all potential defendants; written questions capped at 30 including subparts and answered within 20 days; interviews of treating providers where the provider agrees; and unsworn statements of treating providers. Cooperation is not optional — § 766.106(6)(a) requires parties to make discoverable information available and contemplates dismissal for failure, and § 766.106(7) permits a court to strike a party’s claim or defence for failure to cooperate during presuit.

Florida is used here as a worked example because its presuit scheme is written out in statute. Other states impose certificates of merit, affidavits of merit, screening panels, or nothing at all. The requirement is jurisdiction-specific and it is procedural, which means missing it is usually fatal in a way that a weak fact is not.

For the full process, including California’s 90-day notice and deadline rules, see how to file a medical malpractice claim.

Deadlines that close the claim

The limitations period is the one part of a claim that cannot be argued with afterwards. Two features of Florida’s current scheme catch people out: the general negligence period was shortened, and the change was not retroactive.

Negligence generally. Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a), an action founded on negligence must be brought within two years. That two-year period came in with chapter 2023-15, and the statute carries a note stating that those amendments apply to causes of action accruing after 24 March 2023. A claim that accrued before that date is governed by the older, longer period — so the first question on any older injury is when the cause of action accrued, not what the statute says today.

Medical negligence. Section 95.11(5)(c) sets a two-year period running from when the incident occurred or from when it was, or should have been, discovered with due diligence. There is an outer limit of four years from the incident regardless of discovery. Where fraud, concealment or intentional misrepresentation prevented discovery, the period extends to two years from discovery, capped at seven years from the incident. An action brought on behalf of a minor on or before the child’s eighth birthday is not barred by the four-year limit, and the same exception applies to the seven-year cap. The paragraph does not apply where §§ 766.301–766.316 provide the exclusive remedy.

The presuit notice buys time, but only once it is delivered. The tolling in § 766.106(4) does not start when you decide to make a claim, or when you request records. It starts on mailing or first attempted service of a notice that already has the expert affidavit behind it. That is why a medical negligence claim has to be worked backwards from the deadline, not forwards from the injury.

These are Florida periods. Every state sets its own, and several set different periods for claims against public bodies, with separate and much shorter notice requirements. If a government entity is involved, treat the notice deadline as the real deadline.

How fault splits the money

Fault is not all-or-nothing, and in Florida it is no longer purely proportional either. Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6) provides that “any party found to be greater than 50 percent at fault for his or her own harm may not recover any damages.” That is a modified comparative negligence bar: at 50 percent you recover half, at 51 percent you recover nothing. It changes how an adjuster values a disputed-liability claim, because arguing the claimant just past the halfway line is worth the entire file to them rather than a slice of it.

There is a significant carve-out. Subsection (6) does not apply to actions for personal injury or wrongful death arising out of medical negligence under Chapter 766. A medical negligence claimant is therefore not subject to the 51 percent bar, and comparative fault operates as a straight reduction instead.

Dog bites have their own reduction mechanism in § 767.04, which cuts the owner’s liability by the percentage of the bitten person’s own contributing negligence rather than applying the Chapter 768 bar language.

The practical lesson is the same in every claim type: the first fault theory an adjuster advances is usually the cheapest one available to them, and the only thing that constrains it is the record that already exists. Fault is cheap to allege and expensive to disprove after the fact.

Building the claim file

What follows is the file an adjuster can price. Everything on it is easier to obtain in the first fortnight than at any point afterwards.

If the claim is denied or ignored

A denial is a position, not a verdict. The first move is to pin it down: ask for the denial in writing, identifying the specific policy language or statutory ground relied on. An insurer that will not put its reasoning in writing has a reason for that.

Florida’s insurance code defines unfair claim settlement practices in Fla. Stat. § 626.9541(1)(i). Three of the listed practices come up constantly: failing to adopt and implement standards for the proper investigation of claims (subparagraph 3.a.), denying claims without conducting a reasonable investigation based on available information (3.d.), and failing to promptly give the insured a written, reasonable explanation of the policy basis for a denial or a compromise offer (3.f.).

One honest caveat about that section: those subparagraph 3 practices are defined as unfair when committed “with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice.” It is a regulatory standard aimed at patterns of conduct, not a personal right of action for a single badly handled claim. It is still useful — it tells you what a regulator considers out of bounds, and a complaint to the state insurance regulator citing it is cheap and sometimes effective — but it is not a lever you pull to make one adjuster pay.

Silence is a different problem from denial, and in one context the statute solves it for you. In Florida medical negligence, § 766.106(3)(c) deems a failure to reply within 90 days after receipt a final rejection of the claim. You do not have to chase a response to move forward; the absence of one is the permission to file.

Outside that scheme there is no statutory deeming provision, and an unanswered claim simply sits while the limitations period runs. That is the trap. The deadline in § 95.11 does not pause because an adjuster has stopped returning calls, and “we were still negotiating” is not a defence to a time bar. If a claim is unresolved and the deadline is within a few months, the decision in front of you is whether to file, not whether to keep waiting.

Common questions

Do I have to sue to get paid?

No. Most personal injury matters are resolved as insurance claims and never become lawsuits. Filing suit becomes necessary when the carrier will not offer a reasonable amount, when liability is genuinely disputed, or when the limitations deadline is approaching with no resolution in sight.

Does it matter that the dog had never bitten anyone before?

Under Florida’s statute, no — § 767.04 imposes liability regardless of the dog’s former viciousness or the owner’s knowledge of it. In states that apply a knowledge-based rule instead, prior history can be the whole claim. Which rule applies depends on where the bite happened.

Can I bring a medical negligence claim without an expert?

Not in Florida. Section 766.203(2) requires a verified written medical expert opinion corroborating reasonable grounds, submitted when the notice of intent is mailed. Most states impose a comparable certificate or affidavit of merit requirement.

What if the person responsible has no insurance?

The claim then depends on collectable assets, which is a different and usually much harder analysis. It is worth checking for coverage that is not obvious — a landlord’s policy, an employer’s policy where the person was working, an umbrella policy, or a commercial policy covering the premises.

Will my own insurance paying the bills reduce what I recover?

It generally does not reduce the claim, but the recovery is usually subject to a lien or subrogation interest for what was paid on your behalf. That has to be identified and negotiated before you accept a figure, because it comes out of the settlement rather than being added to it.

How long does a claim take?

The honest answer is that the medical timeline governs, not the legal one. A claim is normally submitted once treatment is complete or the prognosis is stable, because a claim submitted earlier is valued on the treatment completed so far. Statutory presuit periods then add their own fixed time — 90 days in Florida medical negligence, before a suit may even be filed.

How this page was put together

Every statutory statement on this page was read against the official text published by the Florida Senate rather than a secondary summary, and the subsection numbers are cited so you can check them. Florida is used throughout as a worked example because its presuit and limitations schemes are written out in statute in unusual detail; the structure of a claim is similar elsewhere but the numbers and the mandatory steps are not, and nothing here should be read as a statement of another state’s law.

The dog bite claim figures are the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm series on dog bite liability, reported as claims closed and dollars paid in the calendar year. They describe what liability insurers paid, which is a fact about claims handling and policy limits. They are not an estimate of what any individual claim is worth, and they should not be used as one.

Statutory periods and procedural requirements change, sometimes without much notice — Florida’s general negligence period moved from four years to two in 2023, and that change was not retroactive. Where a statement here depends on a date, the date is given. If you are reading this long after October 2026, verify the current text before relying on it.

This site covers the claim: notice, proof, procedure, deadlines, denial. Questions about what a case is worth, settlement and verdict data, and the litigation side are kept on TortAdvisor.

Sources

• Fla. Stat. § 767.04, Dog owner’s liability for damages to persons bitten — Florida Senate, Chapter 767
• Fla. Stat. § 766.106, Notice before filing action for medical negligence; presuit period, tolling and informal discovery — Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. § 766.203(2), Presuit investigation; verified written medical expert opinion — Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. § 95.11, Limitations other than for the recovery of real property — Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. § 768.81(6), Comparative fault; greater percentage of fault — Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. § 626.9541(1)(i), Unfair claim settlement practices — Florida Senate
• Insurance Information Institute and State Farm, Spotlight on dog bite liability — iii.org