Does Homeowners Insurance cover Slip and Fall Injuries in Florida?
Every day, we hear a new story about someone slipping and falling and then suing for damages. So let’s get the facts straight: are these injuries covered by homeowners insurance?
Homeowners insurance covers your property (such as your home and any contents) and liability claims if someone falls off your property, drives into your driveway, or trips over their dog while in your house.
Slip and Fall accidents are a serious concern for the elderly, young children, and people with disabilities. These accidents can cause severe injury or death if not taken care of promptly and completely. While most individuals perceive that the homeowner’s insurance covers slip and fall injuries in Florida, this is not always the case. As with most personal injury cases, there must be some degree of fault, primarily negligence, for the claim to be successful.
Generally, homeowners’ insurance covers slip and fall injuries on private properties. Nevertheless, getting compensation can be very challenging, and there is a need to contact an attorney for slip and fall injuries in Florida for help.
How to Determine If Homeowners Insurance cover Slip and Fall Injuries in Florida Will
1. Determine if the homeowner has insurance.
Florida law does not mandate that all homeowners have insurance. Typically, a mortgage lender is required to protect their properties. However, some owners may have already paid off the mortgage and decided not to obtain an insurance cover.
Ask the property owner whether they have a policy after the slip and fall. For example, a homeowner’s association may have insurance that covers accidents if a home is a part of one. If you were wounded, request insurance information from the homeowner’s association.
2. Homeowner Negligence and Insurance Coverage
In Florida, a property owner is only accountable for injuries if their negligence resulted in the accident under a legal theory known as premises liability. Just because you feel doesn’t always indicate the homeowner was careless. The landowner was not necessarily at fault because there could have been a slick surface or another risky situation in their home.
The situation that resulted in your injury has to be an unreasonable dangerous situation. Remember that the homeowner is not accountable unless they were somehow legally at fault for the accident. Therefore, in such a case, the liability protection of the policy won’t automatically cover a slip and fall. However, the medical payments provision of the homeowner’s insurance policy might cover some of your medical bills resulting from the accident.
Most slip-and-fall incidents on residential property involve tripping or slipping on stairs, rugs, carpets, or floors and slipping or tripping on pavements. Therefore, it is essential to examine every situation to understand if the homeowner insurance will cover slips and falls.
3. Tripping on Stairs
If you slip and fall due to the condition of the stairs, the claim would be covered either. In addition, if you trip stairs due to a defect in the flooring or products being used, such as tiles or carpet, your personal injury might be covered.
There are exceptions to every rule, but unless there is apparent negligence from someone else involved in the accident, homeowners’ insurance policies are unlikely to cover injuries on staircases. Florida law limits liability for first parties injured due to an accident except where negligence is present. For instance, a guest may be texting while walking downstairs; if the guest loses their footing, the homeowner’s insurance will not cover them because they were not paying attention to where they were going.
Nevertheless, the staircases might be unsafe in ways even the property owner did not notice. Some of the elements that can contribute to slipping and falling on a staircase include:
- A foreign object on the stairs
- A lack of handrails or handrails that are improperly built
- Incorrectly heightened or uneven risers
- Too-shallow steps
- Frayed or dangerous carpets or rugs on the stairs.
4. Tripping on Rugs, Carpets, or Defective Flooring
When a guest trips on an item of furniture or your non-cushioned flooring and sues the insurance company for damages, the homeowner’s insurance will most likely cover that injury since liability is stated in the policy to include intentional acts committed by guests.
Additionally, Florida law states that if you’re entertaining guests within your own home and they trip on any furnishings belonging to you, including each other, during a game of Twister or musical chairs, your homeowners’ insurance applies. The policyholders may want to obtain clarification from their insurance company. If you have doubts about your homeowner’s insurance coverage for guests and family, check with your agent or an independent insurance adjuster. Some homeowners insurance policies have forms to fill out when an injury or accident occurs.
The important thing is not to panic if anyone trips over anything in your home because of the unique circumstances surrounding each case.
Contact an attorney for slip and fall injuries in Florida to help you with any questions and concerns about what happens when guests trip on rugs, carpets, or flooring in Florida.
5. Tripping on a Broken Path or Sidewalk
Homeowners must take reasonable precautions when maintaining their sidewalks and paths. Depending on the magnitude of the sidewalk crack, tripping over it might result in a negligence lawsuit.
What Next After the Accident on Residential Property
Ideally, you are supposed to take a picture of the scene, any injury, and clothes after a slip and fall accident. Remember, conditions can change quickly; therefore, you must react quickly before it is too late. Without photographs demonstrating the cause at the time of your accident may be difficult or impossible to win.
Dealing With Resistant Homeowners in a Slip and Fall Case
There are different reasons why people may be resistant to accepting property damage liability for their actions. Some homeowners have the money to hire an attorney and fight the matter, while others are more willing to accept that they may have been negligent or made a mistake in their property care. They will often say something along the lines of “I didn’t do anything wrong” or “I was just trying to fix it” to avoid liabilities. Other times, homeowners will try and question whether or not someone tripped on their property.
It makes sense that homeowners want to protect their property, especially if they believe it was an accident. Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of cases are genuinely accidental. In most cases, the accident victim was not at fault for the fall and trip. However, even when the homeowner is negligent and has put dangerous conditions or objects on their property, they may not let that liability go. As a result, handling a case like this takes skill and expertise. A lot of times, people want to make quick settlements in order to avoid going to court.
Slip and Fall Victim? Get An Attorney!
If you’ve ever been hurt in a slip and fall accident, you know how serious the results may be. A fall can cause serious, excruciating injuries that may require surgery and months or years of physical treatment to recover from. At worst, these mishaps may leave victims with permanently disabling ailments or, in rare circumstances, even pass away.
Older adults are particularly in danger since falls are presently the number one cause of injury-related mortality for people age 65 and over. It’s even worse because many of these mishaps might have been avoided. Many slips & falls take place on poorly maintained premises, and careless property owners are frequently a fault.
At the Bodden & Bennett Law Group, we know that recovering after a fall can be time-consuming and challenging, but you don’t have to go through it alone. Over the two decades, our lawyers have assisted Slip & Fall victims in obtaining the just compensation they are entitled to. Major injuries like this may change a person’s whole life, and we want to assist.
Slip and fall accident victims frequently find themselves in a predicament where they are unsure what to do after these traumatic incidents. For the ordinary wounded victim, knowing how to go with receiving compensation for injuries might be perplexing as well. Everyone is aware of the fundamentals of homeowners’ insurance coverage. Still, very few are prepared to negotiate with a team of claims adjusters from an insurance company who are working to reduce the value of an injury claim.
At the Bodden & Bennett Law Group, we are aware of this predicament and prepared to intervene as quickly as possible to ensure that our client’s legal rights to compensation are upheld.
Can I Hire An Attorney For Slip And Fall Injuries In Florida After An Accident?
Yes. Our legal team will be able to thoroughly examine the location of your Slip & Fall by evaluating the accident site’s circumstances, locating pertinent surveillance footage, and speaking with potential witnesses if you get in touch with them straight away. So we can establish the most significant case for your complete and just compensation if we get going right away.
Our slip and fall attorneys are located in Boynton Beach, Florida, and are knowledgeable in the statute of limitations and premises liability rules that apply to slip-and-fall accidents. Additionally, our lawyers will thoroughly investigate to see if carelessness was a factor. If it occurred, we would put together the strongest case to negotiate the best settlement; nevertheless, if the other side’s offer is too low, our trial-ready lawyers will not hesitate to take your case to court.
Call us at (561) 806-5229, so you may concentrate on getting well while we handle the battling.
