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The Stages, in the Order They Happen
Claims do not move on a schedule, but they do move through a recognisable sequence. Knowing where you are in it makes the waiting comprehensible.
- Treatment and investigation, running together. Medical care continues while evidence is gathered — the crash report, the scene, video, witnesses, and the bicycle. Most of that evidence expires, which is why this stage front-loads the work. See evidence that proves the case.
- Identifying every responsible party and every available coverage. Driver, vehicle owner, employer, manufacturer, retailer, road authority; liability coverage, uninsured motorist coverage, and any product claim. In e-bike cases this stage matters more than in car cases, because no policy attaches to the bicycle.
- Reaching a stable medical picture. A claim cannot be valued sensibly until the treating physicians can speak to what is permanent and what is not. Rushing this is how people settle short.
- Presenting the claim. The demand sets out liability, the medical picture, and the losses. Against a government body this stage is mandatory and time-limited — Fla. Stat. § 768.28(6)(a) requires written presentment within 3 years, and § 768.28(6)(b) makes it a condition precedent.
- Negotiation. Offers, counters, and argument about fault apportionment under Fla. Stat. § 768.81 and about what the coverage actually is.
- Suit, if it becomes necessary. Filing is not a failure of the process; it is part of it, and sometimes the only thing that moves a file.
- Resolution. Settlement at any point, or a decision at trial.
What Is Actually Fixed, and What Is Not
Almost nothing about the pace of a claim is fixed. The deadlines are, and they are the part worth committing to memory.
| Deadline | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| Negligence — § 95.11(5)(a) | 2 years, for causes of action accruing on or after March 24, 2023 (ch. 2023-15). The clock runs from accrual, which is not always the crash date. |
| Wrongful death — § 95.11(5)(e) | 2 years. |
| Government presentment — § 768.28(6)(a) | 3 years to present in writing; a condition precedent under § 768.28(6)(b), and waiting on the agency does not extend accrual. |
| Government suit — § 768.28(14) | 4 years to commence the action. |
| Civil remedy notice — § 624.155(3)(a) | 60 days' written notice to the department and the insurer, as a condition precedent to a bad faith action. |
| Policy notice | Contractual, frequently much shorter than any of the above, and independent of all of them. |
What is not fixed: how long treatment takes, how contested fault is, whether a manufacturer or a public body is in the case, and whether an insurer engages seriously before suit. Those are the variables, and they are why a general answer to “how long will this take” is not worth much.
David I. Shiner, Esq.
Founder, Shiner Law Group · AV Preeminent® rated · Florida Bar member since 2002
David I. Shiner founded Shiner Law Group and has been a member of The Florida Bar since 2002. He is a graduate of Nova Southeastern University’s law school and holds an AV Preeminent® rating from Martindale-Hubbell. The firm represents injured people across Florida from offices in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Wellington, and Belle Glade, and handles these cases on a contingency basis with free consultations and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Why This Site Will Not Tell You What a Claim Is Worth
You will find websites offering average settlement values for bicycle and e-bike crashes. We do not publish them, and the reason is not modesty.
An average is built from cases with different injuries, different treatment, different fault apportionments, and — decisively — different available coverage. In an e-bike case the coverage question is particularly unforgiving: no policy attaches to the bicycle under Fla. Stat. § 316.20655(2), the PIP position is genuinely unsettled, and a claim against a government body is capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident by Fla. Stat. § 768.28(5) regardless of the harm. A figure that ignores all of that is not information.
Fault does the same work in reverse. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.81(2) an award is reduced in proportion to a claimant's own share, and under § 768.81(6) a party found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing at all. Two identical injuries can resolve very differently on apportionment alone.
So the honest position is the one this site takes throughout: the facts decide it, a lawyer can assess your facts, and a web page cannot. If a source is willing to put a number on your claim without knowing any of this, that tells you something about the source.
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What Actually Slows a Claim Down
- Treatment that has not stabilized. The most common reason, and usually the right reason. Valuing a claim before the medical picture is clear means guessing at the future.
- Contested fault. Where apportionment under § 768.81 is genuinely in issue, the evidence gathered early is what resolves it — or fails to.
- A product claim in the mix. Engineering examination of a failed component takes time, and the chain of distribution may include an offshore manufacturer.
- A government defendant. The presentment machinery in § 768.28(6) adds a mandatory investigation period before suit may be filed.
- Coverage disputes. Uninsured motorist entitlement under § 627.727(1), or a PIP position under § 627.736(4)(e), can require resolution before the underlying claim advances.
- Records. Medical records, public records, and policy documents all arrive on somebody else's schedule.
Almost none of that is within a claimant's control. What is within your control is the first week — care, evidence, and preserving the bicycle. That is the stage where delay does permanent damage. Everything after it is, mostly, waiting well.