Personal injury intake in Florida after HB 837: what to capture and how fast to move

Personal injury intake in Florida has to capture more and move faster since HB 837, the 2023 tort reform that cut the general negligence filing window from four years to two, barred recovery for most claimants found more than 50% at fault, and tied medical damages to details like health coverage and letters of protection. The first conversation now needs an exact incident date, a neutral account of what happened, insurance and treatment details, and a same-day path to a person when a deadline or injury makes the matter urgent. AI can answer every call and message 24/7 and collect those facts; your attorneys set the screening rules and make every decision.

This is not legal advice. Your firm’s attorneys decide the actual screening rules, and the system follows them. For the general mechanics (channels, booking, CRM handoff, metrics), see our guide to AI intake for personal injury law firms.

What changed for personal injury intake in Florida after HB 837?

HB 837 was signed on March 24, 2023. Holland & Knight’s summary of the act and the American Bar Association’s overview cover it in full. Four changes land directly on intake.

• A shorter clock. The general negligence limitations period dropped from four years to two for causes of action accruing after March 24, 2023. Florida Statutes § 95.11 now lists “an action founded on negligence” among the two-year limits.
• Modified comparative negligence. Under § 768.81(6), a party found more than 50% at fault for their own harm generally cannot recover damages. That subsection does not apply to medical negligence.
• Medical damages evidence. § 768.0427 sets what evidence of medical expenses is admissible, including what a claimant’s health coverage would pay. For treatment under a letter of protection, the claimant must disclose, among other things, whether they had health coverage and who referred them for treatment.
• Negligent security. When someone lawfully on commercial or other real property is injured by a third party’s criminal act, the fact-finder must consider the fault of everyone who contributed (§ 768.0701). Multifamily properties that substantially implement a list of security measures get a presumption against liability (§ 768.0706).

The act also changed insurance bad-faith claims and attorney fee rules, which mostly shape what happens after sign-up. For intake, the result is simple: a vague first conversation costs more than it used to. “Sometime last year” is not a date, and “the other guy hit me” is not an account of fault.

HB 837 changes mapped to intake: what to capture and flag

Treat this table as a draft for your attorneys to edit, not a ruleset. The rule underneath every row: intake captures and flags, and a person decides.

HB 837 change	What intake should capture	What to flag for a person
Two-year limitations period for negligence claims accruing after March 24, 2023	The exact incident date, confirmed back to the caller; if they are unsure, month and year plus a note to confirm	Any date past the review threshold your attorneys set, and any incident on or before March 24, 2023, which may fall under the prior rule. Never auto-decline on date alone.
Modified comparative negligence (§ 768.81)	The caller’s account in their own words; whether police came; the report number; any tickets issued; witnesses, photos, dashcam or surveillance video	The caller says they were ticketed or partly responsible. That goes to an attorney, not to a decline. The AI never estimates fault.
Medical negligence excluded from the 50% bar	Whether the injury involved a hospital, doctor, procedure or medication	Every medical negligence inquiry, routed straight to an attorney
Medical damages evidence and letter-of-protection disclosures (§ 768.0427)	Health coverage (private carrier, Medicare, Medicaid or none); who is treating; how the caller found that provider	No health coverage; treatment already under a letter of protection; treatment arranged through a referral
Negligent security (§ 768.0701 and § 768.0706)	Property type and name (apartment complex, store, parking lot, hotel), address, whether a crime was involved, police report number	Any injury caused by a criminal act on someone’s property, especially at apartments and condos
Bad-faith changes (good-faith duties on claimants and their representatives; a 90-day insurer safe harbor)	Every insurer involved: the caller’s auto carrier, the other party’s carrier, claim numbers, adjuster names	The caller has an offer on the table, has given a recorded statement or is negotiating with an adjuster

On the date row: an inquiry about a crash from early 2023 is not automatically too old, since it may fall under the earlier four-year period. Flag it rather than turn the caller away, and never let the AI tell a caller whether their claim is still timely. That is an attorney’s call.

Which questions should Florida personal injury lead intake ask?

Here is a question set built around the table. The AI asks one question at a time and reads names, numbers and dates back. Language and contact details come early so a dropped call can be recovered, and the open “what happened” question comes before any checklist.

1. Language preference. “Would you like to continue in English or Spanish? ¿Prefiere continuar en inglés o en español?” About one in three Floridians age 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, roughly 7.11 million people, and about 73% of them speak Spanish, according to USAFacts’ summary of 2024 Census data. Ask first, not after the caller struggles.
2. Name and callback number. “Can I get your full name and the best number to reach you?” Read the digits back.
3. What happened. “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. Can you tell me what happened?” Let the caller talk, then classify: car, truck, motorcycle, pedestrian, slip and fall, dog bite, crime on a property, medical.
4. Incident date. “What date did this happen?” If unsure: “Do you know the month and year?” Record exactly what was said and mark it for confirmation.
5. County and location. “Where did it happen, and which city or county?” Then: “Where do you live now?” This drives jurisdiction, which office takes the matter and any residency rule your attorneys apply.
6. Fault-related facts. “Did the police come? Do you have a report number? Was anyone given a ticket? Were there witnesses, photos or video?” Neutral questions only. Never “Was it your fault?”
7. Injury and treatment. “Were you hurt? Have you seen a doctor, urgent care or the ER? What was the date of your first visit? Who is treating you now?”
8. Insurance and PIP. “Do you have your own auto insurance, and with which company? Do you know the other driver’s insurer? Have you opened a claim or spoken with an adjuster? Do you have health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid?”
9. Prior representation. “Have you spoken with or hired another lawyer about this?” If the caller is already represented, the AI ends intake politely and logs it for review.
10. Next step. For qualified callers, a consult time and a link to upload photos, the police report and insurance cards.

Why the first treatment date matters

Florida’s PIP statute, § 627.736, ties PIP medical benefits to the injured person receiving initial services and care within 14 days after the motor vehicle accident. So for every car crash inquiry, the record should show the accident date and the first treatment date side by side. A crash inside the last 14 days with no treatment yet is a same-day flag for your team. What the caller hears about PIP is your attorneys’ decision; the AI’s job is to make sure someone sees the flag in time.

How fast does PI intake need to move after HB 837?

Speed to lead has always mattered in personal injury. After HB 837, the first contact starts several clocks at once, and a slow reply eats into all of them.

• The prospect is comparing firms. People often reach out in the hours after an injury, distressed and contacting several firms at once. If you answer the next morning, that conversation may already have happened somewhere else.
• The filing window is shorter. Two years leaves less slack for a lead that sits in a voicemail box for a week.
• Treatment timing. For car crashes, the 14-day PIP window means even a few days of delay can matter.
• Evidence decays. The security measures listed in § 768.0706 include cameras that keep footage retrievable for at least 30 days. That is a minimum, not a guarantee, so a month-old inquiry may be too late for video.

Response targets to set

Situation	Target to set	Who handles it
Any new call, chat or DM, at any hour	Answered immediately	AI voice or chat agent
Qualified lead	Consult time offered before the conversation ends	AI, from your calendar
Urgent flag: catastrophic injury, death, a date near your threshold, a recent crash with no treatment	Live transfer during office hours; on-call alert and same-day callback after hours	Intake specialist or attorney
Missed or dropped call	Text to the caller and alert to staff within seconds	AI
Declined or screened-out inquiry	Reviewed by a person within a week	Intake lead or attorney

Measure the gap between a flag and human contact, not just first response. An instant AI reply followed by a three-day wait for a callback on a recent crash is still slow intake.

How do you build intake for Florida PI law firms with AI and people?

The design principle: AI answers, humans decide. The AI makes sure no inquiry waits and every record holds the same facts. People make the judgments HB 837 raised the stakes on: timeliness, fault, damages and whether to take the case.

Who does what

• Attorneys write the rules: a few hard gates (for example a Florida incident or residency, an injury, not already represented, a working phone number), the flags from the table above, the date thresholds and what the AI must never say.
• The AI answers on every channel (phone through an AI voice agent, web chat and social DMs through AI chat agents), runs the question set, applies only the objective gates, raises flags, books qualified consults and writes one de-duplicated record to your case management system.
• Intake specialists work the flags, take warm transfers, call back after-hours escalations and review every screen-out weekly.

Keep fault, timeliness and damages out of the hard gates; they need a lawyer’s judgment, not a rule in a prompt. For how we set this up for Florida practices, see AI intake for Florida personal injury law firms.

Three Florida guardrails for any AI intake build

Your attorneys should confirm how each of these applies to your firm.

• Inbound only. Florida Bar Rule 4-7.18 generally bars lawyers, and people acting on their behalf, from soliciting prospective clients in person or by telephone. The AI voice agent answers people who contacted the firm. It never cold-calls accident victims.
• Say it is AI. Florida Bar Advisory Opinion 24-1, as summarized by Hinshaw & Culbertson, says lawyers must tell prospective clients they are communicating with an AI program, and the lawyer remains responsible if a chatbot gives misleading information.
• Disclose recording. Florida is an all-party consent state for recording calls under Fla. Stat. § 934.03, per the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. If calls are recorded or transcribed, the assistant says so at the start.

A possible opening line, with final wording signed off by your attorneys:

“Thanks for calling [Firm]. I’m the firm’s AI assistant, not a lawyer, and this call is recorded so our team can review it. Would you like to continue in English or Spanish? ¿Prefiere continuar en inglés o en español?”

What does this look like at a real Florida PI firm?

Darfoor Law Firm is a Fort Lauderdale personal injury practice handling accident, malpractice and wrongful death matters. Inquiries came by phone and through DMs on two Instagram accounts, Facebook Messenger and TikTok, and after-hours messages waited until the next business day. Over four weeks, we built a system where AI answers every channel and the attorney keeps the judgment calls.

• An eight-step qualification conversation collects name, location, representation status, injury details, accident type and available evidence.
• Five objective gates are checked automatically: Florida residency, confirmed physical injury, unrepresented status, a valid phone number and a complete name. Fault and case value are not gates.
• When a caller needs immediate attention, the voice agent briefs Mr. Darfoor on the situation, then connects the call.
• A missed call triggers two texts within seconds, one to the prospect and one to staff.

The recorded results: 100% of inbound leads captured and answered regardless of time of day or staff availability; 4 → 1 channels unified into one intake pipeline; 0 duplicate leads entering the pipeline; 5 qualification gates applied automatically before anything reaches an attorney; and 24 hrs of automated reminders before every booked consultation. The full build is in the Darfoor Law Firm case study.

Where to start

Pull your last 50 intake records and check each one for six fields: exact incident date, county, every insurer involved, first treatment date, representation status and preferred language. Count the gaps. That number is the work your attorneys are doing today to fill in what intake missed.

Then give your attorneys the table above and ask them to mark it up: which flags they want, which date thresholds trigger review and what the assistant must never say. That marked-up page is the specification for any build, ours or anyone else’s. If you want a structured second look at intake, records and handoffs, our free Case-Flow Checkup for PI firms covers it.