The First Two Weeks After a Boca Raton Crash: Who Has Your Report, and What the 14-Day Rule Actually Requires

By Dan Drazen | Drazen Mancini, P.A. | Boca Raton, Florida Florida Bar No. 115454

In Brief

A collision on Glades Road and a collision on I-95 a mile east are, for practical purposes, two different events held by two different agencies in two different filing systems. People hurt in Boca Raton often learn this by calling the police department and being told, correctly, that the department has no such report.

That is the first thing nobody mentions at the scene. The second is a deadline that started running the moment it happened.

There are two clocks, and neither one is obvious.

The first is a treatment deadline. Under Florida’s no-fault law, your own Personal Injury Protection medical benefits depend on receiving initial services and care within 14 days after the crash. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a) (2025).

The second is a reporting deadline that most people never learn about, because it only applies when no officer writes a report. If your crash caused property damage but did not require a law enforcement report, the driver has 10 days to submit a written report to the state. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e) (2025).

And one thing that surprises nearly everyone: which agency has your report depends on where you were sitting when it happened. In Boca Raton, the answer is not always the city police department.

Which Agency Has Your Crash Report, and Why It May Not Be the City Police

Florida law directs crash notice to the local police department if the crash occurred inside a municipality, and otherwise to the county sheriff’s office or the nearest Florida Highway Patrol station. Fla. Stat. § 316.065(1) (2025). That statute governs where a driver must give notice. It does not assign investigations, and in practice which agency responds, and therefore which agency ends up holding the report, can turn on the road as much as on the city limits.

Boca Raton makes this concrete. The City’s draft Vision Zero Action Plan places US 1/Federal Highway, Military Trail, Glades Road, Palmetto Park Road, and Yamato Road on its High Injury Network, the roads where serious-injury and fatal crashes are most concentrated. Most of those are state or county roads rather than city streets, but they run through Boca Raton, and a crash on them inside the city limits is generally handled by the Boca Raton Police Services Department.

Interstate 95 is a different matter. When a crash closed northbound lanes near mile marker 50, just north of Yamato Road, in November 2024, it was the Florida Highway Patrol that investigated and released the details. That is the ordinary pattern on the interstate.

So a driver who calls the Boca Raton Police Services Department looking for a report on an I-95 collision is often told the department does not have it. Usually nothing went wrong. The report is simply somewhere else.

Whether a Report Exists at All is a Separate Question

An officer must complete and submit a Florida Traffic Crash Report, Long Form within 10 days after completing the investigation, but only for certain crashes. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(a) (2025). For other crashes on the public roadways of this state, the officer completes a short-form report or provides a driver exchange-of-information form instead. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(c).

The long-form triggers are worth reading closely, because one of them is broader than people expect. A long form is required when the crash resulted in death, personal injury, or any indication of complaints of pain or discomfort by any of the parties or passengers. It is also required for a crash involving a violation of s. 316.061(1), leaving the scene of a crash involving property damage, or of s. 316.193, driving under the influence, for any crash that left a vehicle inoperable enough to need a wrecker, and for any crash involving a commercial motor vehicle. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(a)1.–4.

Read that first trigger again. Saying “I’m a little sore” at the scene is legally different from saying “I’m fine.” One of those answers is an indication of a complaint of pain.

Separately, the driver’s own duty to notify law enforcement attaches when a crash causes injury, death, or apparent property damage of at least $500. That notice must be given immediately, by the quickest available means of communication. Fla. Stat. § 316.065(1).

And when no law enforcement report is required at all, the obligation shifts to the driver: a written report to the department within 10 days after the crash, on a department-approved form. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e). A driver who fails to file it commits a noncriminal traffic infraction. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(3)(a).

Very little of what is written for Florida drivers mentions that 10-day self-reporting deadline. It is the quietest way to end up with no official record of a crash that actually happened.

You Do Not Have to Wait 60 Days for Your Own Report

Crash reports containing personal information are confidential and exempt from public disclosure for 60 days after filing. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(a) (2025). But the same statute allows them to be made immediately available to the parties involved in the crash and their legal representatives. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(b).

This is the part that gets misread in both directions. People hear “60 days” and assume they have to wait two months for their own report. They generally do not. The statute provides that reports may be made immediately available to a defined group, and that group includes the parties to the crash, their legal representatives, their insurance agents, and their insurers, among others. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(b).

The exemption covers exactly the personal information a solicitor would want, names and addresses and telephone numbers, and the statute makes unlawful disclosure or use of that information a third-degree felony. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(3)(b)–(d).

Getting your own copy carries a condition. Before accessing a confidential report you must present valid photo identification or proof of status and file a written sworn statement that the information will not be used for commercial solicitation of accident victims. That sworn statement is required for each individual report requested. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(d).

The statutory fee for a copy of a crash report is $10. Fla. Stat. § 321.23(2)(a) (2025). Purchasing through the state’s Florida Crash Portal adds a separate convenience charge per transaction.

One practical note on timing that is often stated imprecisely: the statute gives the officer 10 days after the investigation is completed to submit the long form. That is not the same as 10 days after the crash. A report can take longer than expected without anything being wrong.

The 14-Day Rule is Not Just “See A Doctor”

PIP medical benefits require that the injured person receive initial services and care within 14 days after the motor vehicle accident. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a) (2025). The statute is specific about who counts as the provider of that initial care, and the list is narrower than “a doctor.”

Note also what the benefit is: eighty percent of reasonable expenses for medically necessary covered services, not reimbursement of every bill. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a).

Initial services and care must be lawfully provided, supervised, ordered, or prescribed by a physician licensed under chapter 458 or 459, a dentist licensed under chapter 466, a chiropractic physician licensed under chapter 460, or an advanced practice registered nurse registered under s. 464.0123. Care provided in a hospital, or in a facility that owns or is wholly owned by a hospital, also qualifies, as does emergency transportation and treatment by a licensed provider under part III of chapter 401. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)1.

Two things are expressly excluded from medical benefits under this section regardless of who provides them: massage therapy and acupuncture. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)5.

The Trap Inside the Trap

Here is the distinction that decides how much coverage is actually available, and it is almost never explained.

Satisfying the 14-day deadline and unlocking the full benefit are two different requirements met by two different provider lists.

Reimbursement is available up to $10,000 if a physician licensed under chapter 458 or 459, a dentist licensed under chapter 466, a physician assistant licensed under chapter 458 or 459, or an advanced practice registered nurse licensed under chapter 464 has determined that the injured person had an emergency medical condition. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)3.

Now compare that list to the one governing initial care. A chiropractic physician licensed under chapter 460 appears on the initial-services list in subparagraph 1. A chiropractic physician does not appear in subparagraph 3, among the providers who can determine that an emergency medical condition existed.

The asymmetry runs in both directions. Here it is exactly.

A chiropractic physician can furnish the initial care that satisfies the 14-day requirement. A chiropractic physician cannot supply the determination that opens the $10,000 tier. But the $2,500 limitation in subparagraph 4 draws on the broader subparagraph 1 and 2 provider lists, which do include chiropractic physicians. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)4. So the same license that cannot unlock the larger benefit can, on the face of the statute, produce the determination that caps it.

The reverse case exists too. A physician assistant licensed under chapter 458 or 459 can make the emergency-medical-condition determination under subparagraph 3, but does not appear on the initial-services list in subparagraph 1.

None of this is a criticism of chiropractic care, and none of it means a chiropractor is the wrong place to go. It means two different questions get answered by two different sets of licenses, and knowing which question a given appointment can actually answer is worth more than knowing the deadline.

What the Statute Does Not Say

Here is the honest limit of what this article can tell you.

The text addresses two scenarios directly. It provides up to $10,000 where a qualifying provider has determined an emergency medical condition existed. It limits reimbursement to $2,500 where a listed provider determines one did not exist. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)3.–4.

What the text does not expressly resolve is the third scenario: the case where no provider ever makes a determination in either direction. The statute supplies no default for it. That question has been litigated, and the answer comes from decisional law rather than from the section itself, which is precisely why a webpage is the wrong place to get it. How it applies to a particular claim depends on the medical records, the timing, and the position the insurer takes.

I am not going to tell you how your claim comes out. Anyone willing to do that from a webpage has not read your file.

Section 627.736 was last amended by section 19, chapter 2025-4, Laws of Florida. Anyone relying on it should confirm the current text before acting.

One More Thing About that Report

People assume the crash report is the evidence that proves what happened. It generally is not, at least not in the way they imagine.

A crash report made by a person involved in the crash, and any statement that person made to a law enforcement officer for the purpose of completing that report, is without prejudice to the person reporting, and may not be used as evidence in any trial, civil or criminal. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(4) (2025). There are defined exceptions, including officer testimony at a criminal trial where no self-incrimination problem arises, and the results of breath, urine, and blood testing.

The report still matters enormously. It identifies the other driver, their insurer, the passengers, the witnesses, and the investigating agency. It fixes the date, time, and location. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(b). Those are the raw materials of a claim. It is just not the exhibit people expect it to be.

The Deadline Behind Both Deadlines

An action founded on negligence must be commenced within two years. Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a) (2025). An action for wrongful death carries the same two-year period. Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(e).

One qualifier matters here, and it is the kind of thing that gets left out. The two-year negligence period arrived with chapter 2023-15, effective March 24, 2023, and it does not reach backward. A negligence claim that accrued before that date is governed by the four-year period that preceded it. If your crash predates March 2023, do not assume the two-year figure applies to you. There is also a narrow provision under which a wrongful-death action arising from certain intentional acts may be commenced at any time. Fla. Stat. § 95.11(11).

That period governs a negligence claim against the at-fault driver. A claim against your own insurer for unpaid PIP benefits is an action on a written contract and carries a different period. Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(b).

Two years sounds generous next to 14 days. Do not let the long clock distract you from the short one.

Frequently asked questions

How do I look up an accident report in Florida?

Start by identifying which agency investigated, because that determines who holds the report. Florida law routes crash notice to the local police department for crashes inside a municipality, and otherwise to the county sheriff or the nearest Florida Highway Patrol station. Fla. Stat. § 316.065(1) (2025). Reports may also be purchased through the state’s crash portal. The statutory fee for a copy is $10. Fla. Stat. § 321.23(2)(a).

No police officer came to my crash. What do I do?

If the crash caused damage to a vehicle or other property and did not require a law enforcement report, the driver must submit a written report to the department within 10 days after the crash, on a department-approved form. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e) (2025). Failing to file it is a noncriminal traffic infraction. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(3)(a).

Does a visit to a chiropractor satisfy Florida’s 14-day rule?

A chiropractic physician licensed under chapter 460 is among the providers who can furnish the initial services and care that must occur within 14 days. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)1. (2025). Note the separate requirement: the providers who can determine that an injured person had an emergency medical condition are physicians under chapter 458 or 459, dentists under chapter 466, physician assistants under chapter 458 or 459, and advanced practice registered nurses under chapter 464. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)3. Chapter 460 does not appear on that second list. Note the asymmetry: the $2,500 limitation in subparagraph 4 draws on the broader initial-services and follow-up lists, which do include chiropractic physicians. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a)4.

What happens if I miss the 14-day deadline?

The statute conditions PIP medical benefits on receiving initial services and care within 14 days after the motor vehicle accident. Fla. Stat. § 627.736(1)(a) (2025). Missing that window puts those benefits at issue. Whether other coverage remains available depends on the policies involved and the facts of the crash.

Do I need a police report to file a car accident claim in Florida?

A report is not the only way to document a crash, and the driver self-report path exists precisely for crashes no officer attended. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e) (2025). What surprises most people is that a crash report made by a person involved, along with statements made to an officer for the purpose of completing it, may not be used as evidence in any civil or criminal trial, subject to defined exceptions. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(4).

Why is my crash report confidential for 60 days if I can get it now?

The 60-day exemption applies to public access, and it exists to keep personal information out of the hands of people who would use it to solicit crash victims. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(a) (2025). The same statute provides that reports may be made immediately available to a defined group that includes the parties to the crash and their legal representatives, on presentation of identification or proof of status and a written sworn statement that the information will not be used for commercial solicitation of accident victims. Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(b), (2)(d).

Before the Clock Decides For You

Two questions decide more about the first two weeks than anything else: which agency is holding your report, and whether anyone qualified has looked at you yet. Both have answers. Both get harder to fix the longer they sit.

Our office is at 1489 W Palmetto Park Rd, Suite 500, Boca Raton, FL 33486, a few minutes from most of the corridors described above. If you are still inside the 14-day window, that is a reason to call this week rather than next. 561.783.4534.

More on how these claims work: Auto Accidents.

This article discusses Florida law as codified in the 2025 Florida Statutes and is general information, not legal advice for any particular situation. Statutes are amended; confirm current text before relying on any provision. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.