How to Write a Demand Letter in Florida (Personal Injury)

Florida demand letters live or die by three things: documented liability, documented damages, and documented stubbornness about statutory interest. If any of those is missing, the adjuster will low-ball you and know you'll take it.

1. Open with the policy limits ask, not a number

Florida's PIP + bodily injury regime means the adjuster already knows what the policy is. Asking "policy limits" first lets you anchor high without naming a number that caps your ceiling. Save your dollar demand for the second letter — once they've denied limits and you have medical specials to point at.

2. The liability section is where the money is made

• One paragraph of facts, chronological, in the voice of the police report.
• Attach the police report, photos, and (if there's one) the 911 CAD printout.
• Explicitly cite Fla. Stat. §316.0083 or the specific traffic statute the defendant violated. Statute cites make the file look like it will survive a motion.

3. Damages section — build it in layers

List specials in this order: 1. Medical bills — pre-reduction totals from provider ledgers. Attach itemized bills. 2. Lost wages — W-2 or last 90 days of pay stubs. If self-employed, Schedule C + bank deposits. 3. Property damage — repair estimate or total-loss payout receipt. 4. Future medicals — only if you have a letter of future care from the treating provider.

4. The Section 627.4137 kicker

Before you demand policy limits, send a Fla. Stat. §627.4137 disclosure demand. The carrier has 30 days to disclose the policy, limits, and any other coverage. If they refuse, that's a bad-faith setup for later. Keep the disclosure response — it'll become Exhibit A if negotiations stall.

5. The two-letter cadence

• Letter 1 (30 days post-treatment-end): limits demand + §627.4137 disclosure demand.
• Letter 2 (30 days after Letter 1 reply): specific dollar demand with authority deadline (14–21 days).

Most Florida PI settlements close in that second cycle. Letters three, four, and five rarely add value — if the first two don't move them, the carrier has decided to litigate and the file needs to be filed.

How Verdix helps

The Verdix demand-letter module reads the intake fields and attached medical records, drafts a Florida-styled demand letter, and lets you edit before sending. Statute citations are suggested from the intake's incident-type picker. We shipped it because solo PI firms were writing one demand letter a week by hand — now it's one in 15 minutes.

Bottom line

A Florida demand letter is not a creative-writing exercise. It's a layered record of your evidence. Make the file so clean the adjuster writes "evaluate for limits" in their notes without reading past the second page.