Even when you drive carefully, sometimes, you cannot avoid an accident. You expect every person on the road to have vehicle insurance if an accident does happen. However, every state, including Georgia, has uninsured drivers who get into wrecks and cause damages.
Georgia ranks number 23 in the United States for the number of uninsured drivers—about 12.4 percent of all drivers in the state. While the risk of an accident with an uninsured driver is relatively low for Savannah, the risk remains. If you suffer an accident with an uninsured motorist, you don’t have to go through the process to pursue compensation by yourself. In fact, it is difficult without an experienced uninsured motorist accident lawyer to help you through the process.
Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, can help you recover the compensation you deserve from an uninsured motorist whose actions or inactions caused a wreck that resulted in injuries and other damages.
How Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, Can Help You
You might think you have no recourse if the person who hit you doesn’t have insurance. That is not always true. The Savannah uninsured motorist accident lawyers at Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, can help you recover the compensation you deserve in various ways, including going after the at-fault driver’s assets.
Even when the at-fault driver doesn’t have assets, you could still recover compensation for your damages if you have uninsured motorist coverage as part of your insurance policy. Sometimes, the at-fault driver might have insurance even if the vehicle owner doesn’t. Depending on the circumstances, there are often other ways to recover damages from the at-fault driver.
Our Savannah uninsured motorist accident lawyers will meet you in the office, in person, where you need us, such as the hospital, or virtually, so you don’t have to wait to consult with an attorney if you can’t come to us.
Our initial case evaluations are always free and without obligation. Contact a Savannah motorcycle accident lawyer at Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, at 833-552-7274 (833-55-CRASH) for a case evaluation as soon as possible after an uninsured motorist accident.
Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, Represents Victims of Uninsured Motorist Accidents
While no attorney, including our firm, can promise a certain outcome, we can show you the outcome of some of our recent cases to display our dedication to each client’s recovery.
In May 2022, our client recovered $6,703,000 in a wrongful death accident. Another client recovered $5 million for burn injuries sustained in a car accident. In June 2022, a client recovered $1,875,000 for spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.
You can maximize the potential compensation you recover by:
- Seeing a doctor as soon as possible if you haven’t already seen one.
- Keeping a journal of your medical appointments and surgeries, including any therapies you have, such as physical therapy, psychological therapy, cognitive therapy, and occupational therapy.
- Keep a journal of prescription and non-prescription drugs you must take because of accident injuries, including prescriptions for anxiety, depression and/or post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Notes about treatment plans.
- Notes about how your recovery is coming along, especially if you have setbacks.
- Copies of receipts.
- Always keep doctors’ appointments. If you cancel even one appointment without having an excellent reason, the defense will use that against you.
- Always keep therapy appointments unless you are severely ill or have an emergency. Again, the defendant will use missed appointments against you by saying that your physical or emotional limitations are not bad or a figment of your imagination since you didn’t attend all of the appointments.
You should also stay off social media. Defendants, including insurance companies, will follow you on social media to see if you are injured as severely as you say. Even if you are, they will use what you post to try to prove that your injuries are not as severe.
Documenting the accident and the steps you take toward recovery is an excellent addition to your medical records. Your uninsured motorist accident lawyer can use your documentation to help prove your case and the severity of your injuries.
Recovering Compensation After an Accident With an Uninsured Motorist
The compensation you recover after an uninsured motorist accident depends on several factors, including the severity of your injuries.
Injuries You Might Sustain During an Uninsured Motorist Car Accident
The injuries you sustain depend on several factors, including the speed of the vehicle, how a vehicle hits you, whether it is a sideswipe accident, head-on wreck, or rear-end crash, the size of the vehicles involved, and other factors.
Injuries could range from minor cuts and bruises to catastrophic injuries, such as traumatic brain injuries. However, just because you might have minor cuts and bruises doesn’t mean that you’ll get away with very little compensation. You could receive more compensation if those cuts become infected or contribute to other injuries.
Additionally, if any of your injuries worsen existing injuries or illnesses, you could recover compensation for the additional medical expenses and pain and suffering you incur.
Accident injuries include:
- Cuts, bruises, scratches, and scrapes.
- Road rash.
- Strains and sprains.
- Pulled and torn muscles and other soft tissue injuries.
- Simple and compound fractures.
- Crushed bones and crush injuries.
- Face and eye injuries.
- Ear injuries, including deafness, if one or more vehicles explode.
- Chemical and thermal burns.
- Lung injuries from breathing in toxic fumes.
- Head, neck, and shoulder injuries.
- Traumatic brain injuries.
- Back and spinal cord injuries.
- Amputation of a digit or limb.
The firm puts together a legal team of expert witnesses, including accident reconstruction experts and medical experts. Together, they investigate the accident and review your medical records to help determine a fair and reasonable amount of compensation you should receive.
Compensation for an Uninsured Motorist Accident
You could recover two types of compensatory damages: Economic and non-economic damages. Georgia also allows accident victims to recover punitive damages.
Economic Damages
Sometimes referred to as special damages, economic damages have a monetary value.
Most accident victims can recover economic damages, including:
- Medical expenses, including doctors’ appointments, surgeries, future medical expenses, prescriptions, ambulatory aids, hand controls for your vehicles, and updates to your home, such as wheelchair ramps, handrails, widened doorways, and grab bars. Medical expenses include home health care, physical therapy, cognitive therapy, occupational therapy, psychological therapy, and nursing home expenses.
- Lost income, including loss of future earning capacity. Even if you are able to work part-time after an accident, you could recover the difference in earning capacity. If your injuries prevent you from doing your previous work but allow you to work full-time at a job that pays less than your career, you could recover loss of earning capacity for the difference in your income.
- Personal property, including your vehicle and anything of value in your vehicle that the accident damaged or destroyed.
- Death-related expenses, including funeral and burial expenses, cremation expenses, certain probate court costs, and probate attorney’s fees and costs.
Non-Economic Damages
Sometimes referred to as general damages, non-economic damages do not have a set monetary value. Not everyone in a car accident can recover non-economic damages. In most cases, you have to incur injuries and damages resulting in long-term or permanent disabilities. While each insurance company might have its own definition of long-term and permanent disabilities, the Social Security Administration defines them as lasting longer than 12 months or resulting in death.
Non-economic damages include:
- Pain and suffering, including emotional distress.
- Loss of quality of life if you have to make lifelong changes, such as taking prescription drugs or using ambulatory aids.
- Loss of companionship if you cannot enjoy time with your family or participate in family activities and events.
- Loss of consortium if you can no longer have a physical relationship with your spouse.
- Loss of use of a body part, such as a foot or arm.
- Loss of use of a bodily function, such as your eyesight, hearing, or bladder.
- Amputation of a digit or limb.
- Inconvenience if you have to hire someone to do the chores you usually do, including but not limited to grocery shopping, house cleaning, lawn maintenance, and home repair and maintenance.
- Excessive scarring and/or disfigurement.
Punitive Damages
The court orders a defendant to pay punitive damages if the defendant’s actions were grossly negligent or intentional. Since punitive damages are a punishment, the plaintiff—you—must be able to show that the defendant’s actions or inactions were willful, malicious, fraudulent, or oppressive. The court orders compensatory damages in an attempt to make you whole again—not so with punitive damages.
It is often difficult to recover punitive damages, especially from an uninsured motorist. However, if your injuries and other damages are severe enough to affect you for the rest of your life, the extra time it takes to recover punitive damages is often worth the extra hassle.
Uninsured Motorist Accidents in Savannah, GA
No matter where you drive, you have a chance of being hit by an uninsured driver. However, Savannah has several intersections where you have a higher chance of being in an accident, thus, a higher chance of being hit by an uninsured driver.
Those intersections include:
- Abercorn and White Bluff
- I-16 and Chatham Parkway
- King George and Abercorn
- Abercorn and Rio Road
- DeRenne Avenue and Truman Parkway
- Martin Luther King and 37th Street
Savannah sees a lot of tourists throughout the year, but even more during the warmer months. While 12.4 percent of Georgia’s drivers might be uninsured, that low percentage doesn’t account for out-of-staters driving without insurance.
How Long Do I Have to File an Uninsured Motorist Claim?
Georgia’s statute of limitations gives you two years to take legal action after an accident, with the exception of loss of consortium. If damages include loss of consortium, you have up to four years to take legal action.
However, you should always contact a Savannah uninsured motorist accident lawyer immediately after the accident. Before you can start settlement negotiations, several actions must take place, including investigating the accident and investigating the uninsured motorist to see if the at-fault driver has money or if you can make a claim on a relative’s insurance.
Additionally, defense attorneys will likely argue that your injuries were caused by something else or that you are not hurt as badly as you say if you don’t seek medical attention immediately.
Contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA
After an accident with an uninsured motorist, many people never contact an attorney, as they believe they have no recourse. That is not true—you can recover compensation for your injuries and other damages in several ways. An experienced Savannah uninsured motorist accident lawyer will review your case and help you create a plan of action to recover compensation.
Additionally, Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, uses expert witnesses to help prove your case. Depending on the circumstances, they may call in accident reconstruction experts and various medical experts, depending on your injuries and your doctors’ expectations of when you might recover. If doctors expect your injuries to cause permanent disabilities, your legal team may rely on expert witnesses to verify your doctors’ claims.
If you suffered injuries in a wreck with an uninsured motorist, contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, at 833-552-7274 (833-55-CRASH) for a free case evaluation.