Right after a crash, you will likely check yourself and passengers for injuries, call for emergency services and possibly exchange information with the other driver. If you get hurt, assessing your own injuries and getting timely medical care will often be the top priority.
Whether you have a broken bone or a totaled car, a crash caused by another driver can be expensive. You will expect that motor vehicle insurance will cover your costs. What compensation can you claim from the other driver’s insurance after a crash?
Liability coverage pays for property damage and injury-related costs
Expenses that result from a car crash usually fall into one of two categories.
There will be property damage expenses, like the cost of repairing your vehicle or getting a new screen put on your phone that broke during the collision. There will also be medical expenses, which include not only the cost of your care but also secondary expenses, like the wages you don’t earn while you’re in the hospital.
Theoretically, those hurt in the crash caused by someone else can make a claim for all of their verifiable losses, including weeks lost wages when they couldn’t work and the expense involved in buying a new vehicle.
The other driver’s decisions limit your compensation
On the one hand, liability-based insurance program means that your policy doesn’t pay when someone causes a crash and so your costs don’t go up, which is reasonable. On the other hand, you paid to protect other people and are at the mercy of the coverage of a driver irresponsible enough to cause a major wreck.
If the driver only carries the coverage required by Georgia state law, they may have as little as $25,000 for property damage coverage and $25,000 for injury-related claims for one person or $50,000 if two or more people get hurt. If they don’t have insurance, you may not have any coverage unless you carry uninsured driver coverage on your own policy.
When someone doesn’t have insurance or their insurance won’t cover all of the costs you incurred because of a crash, drivers may have no other choice but to pursue a personal injury lawsuit to recover the costs incurred because of the collision.
