John C. Austin

I represent people injured in car and motorcycle crashes, falls, bicycle collisions and dog attacks, along with families bringing wrongful death claims, throughout Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. What is unusual about my practice is where I spent the first twelve years of it, on the other side of these cases.

From 2009 to 2016 I defended insurance companies and their insureds against personal injury claims. From 2016 to 2021 I served as in-house counsel for State Farm Claims Litigation Counsel in St. Petersburg. Across those years I handled thousands of injury and wrongful death files, attended hundreds of depositions, and tried cases to verdict as both lead and co-counsel, all of it for the carrier.

I also hold the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation, an insurance-industry credential earned by fewer than four percent of professionals in that field and rarely held by plaintiffs' attorneys.

So when I evaluate a case, I am not guessing at what the adjuster is thinking. I know how a file gets set up, how a reserve is calculated, which defenses come first, and what has to be in front of a carrier before it treats a claim seriously. That does not change the facts of an injury. It changes how the claim gets built.

Six come up in nearly every case.

"Why is the insurance company offering so little?"

Usually because the offer is being measured against a reserve, an internal number the carrier set early, often before the medical records were complete. It is rarely a judgment about the person. It is a number generated from limited information. The way to move it is to replace that limited information with a complete, documented picture of the injury, the treatment and the effect on the person's life.

"Should I give the other driver's insurance company a recorded statement?"

Your own policy generally obligates you to cooperate with your own insurer. The at-fault driver's carrier is a different matter, that adjuster is not working for you, and the statement is being taken for their file. Talk to a lawyer before you give one.

"The other driver had almost no insurance. Is that the end of it?"

Often not, but it is the question people are most surprised by. Florida requires only $10,000 in personal injury protection and $10,000 in property damage liability. It does not require most drivers to carry bodily injury liability coverage at all. So someone can be fully legal on Florida roads and carry nothing that pays for the harm they cause. When that happens we look to uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy, to any other applicable policies, and to whether anyone else bears responsibility.

"How long do I have to file?"

Less time than most people think. For most negligence claims arising after March 24, 2023, Florida's deadline is two years, the 2023 tort reform legislation cut it from four. Some claims run on different clocks, including wrongful death and claims against government entities. If you are unsure which your case falls under call our office! 

"They are saying the crash was partly my fault. Does that end my claim?"

Not necessarily, but Florida changed this in 2023. Under the current modified comparative negligence rule, you can recover a share of your damages if you are found 50 percent or less at fault, and you recover nothing if you are found more than 50 percent at fault. That makes the fault allocation itself worth fighting over in a way it was not before.

"What is my case worth?"

I will not put a number on a case in the first meeting, and I would be careful with anyone who does. The value depends on the injury, how it responds to treatment, whether liability is contested, and how much coverage exists. I would rather tell you what I do not yet know than give you a figure I cannot stand behind. That's like asking how much a house is worth without us knowing how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has, and where it is located, it's just not practical.