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A car accident causes stress in many different areas of your life. You might be hurt and in pain and then get handed a large bill as you leave the hospital. If you need follow-up care, you’ll be receiving follow-up bills. Then there’s the time you missed at work while recovering, another financial loss. Your car probably needs to be fixed, and repair work isn’t cheap. On top of that, you might wonder if your insurance rates will go up because of your accident.
The answer to the common question, “Does your insurance go up if you get hit?” is that it depends on who is found at fault for the accident. Your insurance rates should only increase if you cause the collision. Georgia law forbids insurance companies from raising your rates because someone else caused an accident or if you were in a collision with an uninsured driver. But it’s important to know that fault isn’t always crystal clear in an accident, and it’s very common for the other driver – and their insurance carrier – to push the blame off on you. As a result, you need to give yourself the best chance possible of proving you didn’t cause the accident, and consulting a car accident lawyer is the way to do that.
Attorney Ali Awad has worked on hundreds of car accidents and other personal injury cases, and he’s ready to help fight for your legal rights. He started the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm only a few years ago, and rapidly turned it into one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country. Additionally, more than a million followers enjoy his down-to-earth legal talk on social media. If you want to protect your finances after a car accident, please contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm for a free consultation about your case and options for pursuing compensation.
Should I File A Claim With My Insurance Provider If The Other Driver Is At Fault?
Although your insurance carrier shouldn’t punish you with higher rates, and it’s a good idea to let them know about the accident, they will probably tell you to file a claim with the other driver’s insurance first. Generally the at-fault driver is supposed to pay for your medical care and property damage following a collision. But since most people don’t have the resources to pay out of pocket, their liability insurance should take care of your costs. However, there are a few potential stumbling blocks here:
- The other driver doesn’t have insurance, despite it being required in the state of Georgia.
- The other driver has insurance, but its policy limit is well below the total damages you have.
- The other driver’s insurance company thinks you were at fault or finds some other grounds to deny your claim.
Let’s look at these situations one at a time:
The Uninsured Motorist
The first thing we do in this situation is go over the client’s own insurance policy to see if they have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage (also called UM/UI coverage) and, if so, how much. UM/UI is not required in Georgia, but insurance companies will require that you check a box on the forms to opt-out, so many people have at least minimum UM/UI policies. This is the best solution for handling an uninsured driver crash – and again, it should not make your premiums go up.
If you don’t have UM/UI, we will consider MedPay or Collision coverage if you have these “add-ons” to your liability insurance. MedPay provides an extra layer of protection by covering your healthcare costs after an accident, no matter who was at fault. (Standard liability insurance only covers your requirement to pay for other motorists’ injuries in an accident you cause.) MedPay can be used in crashes where you were at fault, where fault is unclear, or where the other driver is uninsured. Collision coverage is the same layer of protection for damage to your vehicle or other property.
The Underinsured Motorist
The minimum requirement for liability insurance in Georgia is only $25,000 for bodily injury and property damage. This covers many situations where people are hurt or suffer vehicle damage, but not all of them. If your injuries are severe or your health insurance doesn’t cover much, you could quickly end up with more than $25,000 in healthcare expenses.
Will your UM/UI coverage take care of the balance? Maybe, if you have a stacking policy. Stacking policies can be used to supplement other insurance coverage, including the at-fault driver’s policy. Non-stacking policies are only designed to guarantee you X dollars in coverage, and if you’ve already received that from the other driver’s insurance, then the non-stacking policy can’t be used. So if you have $40,000 in medical costs and the other driver has the minimum liability coverage at $25,000, a stacked UM/UI policy would pick up the remaining $15,000. An unstacked policy would not.
The Insurance Adjuster Who Blames You
Insurance adjusters are paid to reduce the company’s spending on claims, and they often do this by refuting that their client was to blame for an accident. Under Georgia’s comparative negligence laws, a driver who was more than 50 percent at fault can’t collect damages, and a driver who is less than 50 percent at fault can collect them. This means the insurance company only has to make a case that you were mostly at fault to win in court. Most car accident claims settle out of court, but insurance adjusters also use their own estimation of fault to convince claimants that they aren’t entitled to compensation. Sometimes we meet people who are convinced they have no case because the insurance company told them they didn’t!
Don’t let this happen to you. Although you can’t stop the insurer from trying to get out of paying your claim, you can make it harder for them to do so successfully by taking the following steps:
- Don’t talk to the insurer until you’ve had a chance to speak with a lawyer first.
- Don’t post about your accident on social media or any public site. Sometimes insurers will comb these apps looking for an opportunity to twist your words and claim you were at fault.
- Never admit fault. You may not know everything that happened before your accident. Even if you did make a mistake, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it caused the accident, or that you are more than 50 percent at fault.
- Secure the services of a qualified attorney who can negotiate with the insurance carrier on your behalf. In many cases, a car accident lawyer may be able to refute the insurer’s claims about fault or uncover more evidence to show what happened.
The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm
When you or a loved one are facing the aftermath of a car accident, you need someone who’s on your side and willing to fight for your rights. Please contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm for a free consultation at no obligation. If we take your case, there won’t be any cost to you until we win, so you don’t have to worry about how you’ll afford a lawyer. Visit us online to see how much your case is worth.