The costs caused by a car crash start accruing very quickly. The damage to your vehicle may cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair, and you will probably pay a few hundred dollars to tow the vehicle to the shop that you trust to do the work.
If you get hurt in the crash, you will have to pay for medical care, possibly in addition to emergency medical transportation in an ambulance. If the injuries you have are serious enough, you could miss quite a bit of work.
Although you may expect that car insurance will fully reimburse you for all of those expenses, the coverage that the other driver has might not pay for all your costs.
Georgia’s requirements are too low for serious crashes
It has been quite some time since Georgia lawmakers updated mandatory car insurance coverage requirements, and the amount of coverage necessary to legally drive is not nearly enough to pay the full costs incurred in major collisions.
In a crash where you are the only person who gets hurt and the driver at fault has the lowest coverage the state permits, you might have just $25,000 worth of property damage coverage to replace your brand new vehicle and $25,000 worth of bodily injury coverage to pay for both your week-long hospitalization and weeks of lost wages until you were able to get back to work.
There are other options when insurance won’t be enough because the other driver’s policy falls short of your expenses. If you carry collision coverage or underinsured motorist protection, you can file a claim against your own coverage for certain losses. Otherwise, you might be able to take the driver at fault for the crash to court.
Identifying how much compensation you need and the coverage available to you will be important when you need help covering your costs following a Georgia car crash.
