What to Do After a Car Accident That Was Not Your Fault

An adjuster may suggest a particular shop, but the choice is yours. The Department of Insurance says you can have the car fixed wherever you want. Payment will still follow going market rates for the work, plus local average prices for parts and labor. A shop that charges more than that may leave a gap. Ask for a written estimate before work begins, and send a copy to the adjuster.

Your own collision coverage, if you bought it, can pay for the repair under its terms, less the deductible. The Department of Insurance calls collision optional, though a lender may require it. If the driver at fault had no liability policy, your mandatory UM coverage includes a property damage part of at least $25,000 under Section 38-77-150. That part may exclude the first $200, which the Department says you should recover if your insurer later wins its money back from the uninsured motorist. Under Section 38-77-210, UM need not pay for damage another source already covered.

A pending injury claim is no excuse for holding up the car money, and Section 38-77-330 says so. When neither liability nor the amount is in dispute, the statute calls for immediate payment. The Director of Insurance may add 8% interest to a payment held up for no good reason. The Department of Insurance also takes complaints from consumers who think an insurer is mishandling a claim. Whether a particular delay counts as unnecessary depends on the facts, which a lawyer can review.

Many drivers hear that a car is totaled once repairs reach 75% of its value. That number comes from Section 56-19-480(G), a titling law.

For salvage title purposes, it counts a car as a total loss when repair cost reaches 75% of its fair market value. Parts and reasonable market labor both go into that cost. Cars worth $2,000 or less and antiques fall outside the rule. It never tells an insurer how much to pay you.

After a total-loss settlement, the insurer sends SCDMV the title along with a report on the damage. Under Section 56-19-480(B), the company may apply for a salvage title if you accept an offer but keep the title past 30 days. It first has to show two or more written attempts to get the title from you.

A salvage title marks the car as a total loss. A salvage car that someone later rebuilds gets a branded title, one annotated to show it was salvaged and rebuilt. The title question arises only after you accept an offer, so the value discussion comes first.

Your own insurer is a different matter. The South Carolina Supreme Court's Opinion No. 25612, filed in 2003, answered questions sent up by the federal district court in South Carolina. It held that a State Farm policy paying the lower of actual cash value or repair cost owed nothing extra for lost value. The owner there admitted his car was fully and properly repaired. That result turned on one policy's wording, so a different policy needs its own reading.

That 2003 decision read an insurance contract. It did not decide a claim against the driver at fault or that driver's carrier. So the third-party question stays open in South Carolina.

Take a two-year-old SUV repaired after a sideswipe on Bacons Bridge Road. With clean service records, it may support a lost-value claim that an older car with prior damage might not. The outcome depends on the evidence, and nobody can promise an insurer will pay it.

Your own carrier's paperwork deserves the same care. Under Section 38-77-260, an insurer paying first-party benefits such as med pay or UM may not seek a general release or an agreement to deduct that payment from your liability recovery. Any such paper is void unless the insurer first delivers a disclosure statement on a form the Director of Insurance approved. At least three days must also pass between that statement or the payment, whichever comes later, and your signature.

Deadlines keep running while you work out what to do after a car accident that was not your fault. You generally get three years to file an injury suit, per Section 15-3-530. The count begins, under Section 15-3-535, when you learned of the claim or reasonably should have. That discovery rule does not extend the car's own three-year window, which opens on the crash date.

Frost Law Group handles calls and forms from the other driver's insurance company, including recorded statements and records releases. After treatment shows the full injury, the firm can assess the value of a car accident injury claim. For the scene and the first calls, Tara and Jack also walk clients through the early steps after any South Carolina wreck.