By Angela A. Zervos
I grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Tampa Bay in 1985. After earning a business management degree at the University of South Florida, I went to law school at Stetson University College of Law, graduated in 1996, and joined The Florida Bar the following year. My first courtroom years were spent as a public defender, where I handled more than 30 criminal trials before moving to personal injury work in 1998. That early exposure to juries shaped everything I have done since.
When an insurance company believes it controls the outcome of a claim, it negotiates one way. When it knows a case may be decided by six jurors, it negotiates another way. Most of my career has been spent making sure insurers understand the second possibility is real.
What Insurers Count On
Before opening Zervos & Calta, PLLC in 2017, I settled cases and obtained jury verdicts totaling more than $80 million. I have tried cases against State Farm, Nationwide, GEICO, Farmers Insurance, Allstate, USAA, Liberty Mutual and other carriers, in courtrooms across Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough and Sarasota counties, and many of those verdicts exceeded the insurer’s policy limits. Most of them were published in Florida’s Jury Verdict Reporter.
Those numbers matter less than what they reveal about the process. Insurers have large budgets and experienced adjusters, and many injured people accept early offers because they assume a trial is out of reach. An adjuster who sees a file with gaps in treatment, no witness statements and a client who has never been told what a jury might do has little reason to move. A file that is prepared for trial from the first week tells a different story.
How Florida Changed the Math in 2023
Florida’s 2023 tort reform, House Bill 837, made preparation more important. The law moved the state to modified comparative negligence, so an injured person found more than 50 percent at fault now recovers nothing. It shortened the deadline for most negligence claims from four years to two for causes of action that accrued after March 24, 2023. It also changed how medical expenses are proven at trial, limiting evidence of past bills to amounts actually paid or owed and requiring disclosures when treatment is provided under a letter of protection.
Each of those changes gives an insurer another argument. A defense lawyer who can push a client’s share of fault past the 50 percent line wins the whole case, and a claim filed one day late is gone. People injured in a crash today have less room for delay than they did a few years ago.
The First Weeks After a Crash
Florida’s no-fault system shapes the beginning of every auto case. Personal injury protection coverage pays up to $10,000 toward medical expenses and lost wages regardless of fault, but only if the injured person receives initial care within 14 days of the crash. Without a determination that the person had an emergency medical condition, the medical benefit is limited to a much smaller amount. A client who waits two weeks to see if the pain goes away can lose most of that coverage.
Bodily injury liability coverage is a separate question. Florida does not require most drivers to carry it in order to register a car, so the at-fault driver may have little or no coverage at all. Uninsured motorist coverage on the injured person’s own policy often becomes the most important source of recovery, and it is worth reading the declarations page before any conversation with an adjuster.
Evidence starts disappearing on the day of the crash. Surveillance video from businesses near an intersection is often recorded over within days, vehicles are repaired or sold for salvage, and witnesses move on. Florida keeps crash reports confidential for the first 60 days, with access limited to the people involved, their lawyers and their insurers, so the report itself is available to the injured person right away. Photographs of the vehicles and the scene, the names of anyone who stopped to help and a record of every medical visit give a case its foundation long before any lawsuit is filed.
Pasco County has grown quickly, and so has traffic along its main corridors. Anyone looking for a personal injury attorney wesley chapel fl residents can reach after a crash on State Road 56 or near the Interstate 75 interchanges should expect the first meeting to focus on insurance before anything else, because the policies involved decide how much money is actually available.
Why Policy Limits Matter So Much
A verdict above the at-fault driver’s policy limits does not automatically put that money in the client’s hands. It does change the conversation. When an insurer had a reasonable opportunity to settle within its limits and failed to do so, it may face exposure for the full verdict. HB 837 also reshaped Florida’s bad faith law, adding duties of good faith for claimants and their lawyers and providing that mere negligence by an insurer is not enough to establish bad faith. Handling a limits demand correctly now requires more care than it once did.
Here’s the kicker, though. The insurer’s evaluation of a case often depends on who is handling it. Adjusters often know which lawyers try cases and which ones settle everything. A trial record gives weight to a demand letter before anyone walks into a courtroom.
Keeping Clients in the Loop
I maintain direct communication with each client in person, by phone and by email. Injury cases take months or years, and clients deserve to know what is happening at every stage. As a mother of two and a grandmother of four, I also know that an injury rarely affects one person. Spouses take on extra work, children adjust their routines, and the losses spread through the whole family. Those losses belong in the case as well.
Serving the Tampa Bay Region
Our main office is in Tarpon Springs, and we meet clients by appointment in Spring Hill, Clearwater and St. Petersburg. I am admitted to The Florida Bar and the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. I hold an AV Preeminent Rating from Martindale-Hubbell, received in 2013, and I am a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. I also belong to the Clearwater Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, the Florida Justice Association and the Tampa Bay Trial Lawyers Association.
Car crashes along the growing roads north of Tampa raise the same issues I have seen for almost three decades: disputed fault, limited coverage and insurers that expect a quick settlement. A wesley chapel car accident lawyer handling one of those claims today has to deal with the changes from the first phone call, including the shorter deadline and the new fault threshold.
Most cases never reach a jury, and that is often the right outcome for the client. What matters is that the insurer knows a jury is possible. That knowledge, more than any argument in a letter, is what moves a claim toward a fair result.
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