You did everything right. You were driving legally, paying attention, following the rules, and some other driver blew through a light or rear-ended you or crossed the center line, and now you’re dealing with the aftermath.
Their insurance should cover it. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Except their policy limit is $25,000 and your medical bills are already past $80,000 and you haven’t finished treatment yet. Now what?
This catches people completely off guard. They’ve already been through the crash and the ER and the weeks out of work, and they’re just now finding out that the insurance they were counting on isn’t going to touch what they’ve actually lost. It’s a gut punch on top of everything else.
You probably have more options than you think. But you have to know where to look.
First, Let’s Be Honest About How Low the Minimums Actually Are
South Carolina requires drivers to carry $25,000 in bodily injury liability per person. Twenty-five thousand dollars. One surgery and two nights in a hospital and you’ve blown through that before physical therapy even starts. Serious crashes eat through $25,000 in the first week.
And a significant share of drivers on the road are carrying only that minimum. Some are carrying nothing at all. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tracks uninsured and underinsured driver involvement in serious crashes, and the numbers are not reassuring. If the person who hit you is in that group, their insurer is going to write a check for whatever the policy limit is, call themselves done, and hang up. They legally owe nothing beyond that number no matter what your medical bills look like.
That check does not close your claim. Accepting the at-fault driver’s policy limit is a step, not an ending. What matters is what you do next and what you sign when you take it. Some releases are written broadly enough to shut off every other avenue of recovery you have. Read everything. Don’t sign a full release until you know exactly what you’re giving up and why.
Your Own Policy Is Where the Real Conversation Usually Happens
Underinsured motorist coverage. UIM on your declarations page. Most drivers have it and barely know what it does until they need it.
Here’s how it works. The at-fault driver’s insurer pays their limit. Say that’s $25,000. Your UIM coverage then kicks in to cover the gap between what they paid and what your damages actually are, up to your own UIM limit. So if your damages are $90,000 and you have $100,000 in UIM coverage, you’re looking at recovering the full $90,000 between the two policies.
Go find your auto policy right now. Look at the UIM section. What are your limits? A lot of people genuinely don’t know. And if those limits are low, raising them is usually not expensive. It’s one of the few insurance adjustments that costs relatively little and makes a real difference in exactly this situation.
If the other driver had no insurance at all, the same basic logic applies but through your uninsured motorist coverage, UM rather than UIM. Your own policy pays what their nonexistent policy would have paid.
South Carolina also allows stacking in some situations. If you have multiple vehicles on one policy and UM or UIM coverage on each, you may be able to stack those limits together. Three vehicles with $50,000 each means $150,000 in potential coverage. Whether your specific policy allows stacking depends on how it’s written, and getting that wrong costs real money. It’s worth having someone who knows South Carolina insurance law look at it.
What About Going After the Driver Personally?
Technically possible. Practically, it depends on what they actually have.
A driver who’s carrying minimum limits often doesn’t have significant assets to collect from. That’s usually why they’re carrying minimum limits. But not always. If they own property, have savings, or earn a salary that could be garnished, a judgment against them creates a legal debt that follows them. South Carolina allows wage garnishment in certain civil judgments.
An attorney can run a basic asset check quickly. If there’s something there worth going after, you find out. If there isn’t, you know that too and you stop spending energy on it.
Med-Pay. Use It Immediately If You Have It
Medical payments coverage is an optional add-on that pays your medical bills fast, regardless of fault, without waiting for the liability mess to sort itself out. Limits are usually modest, $1,000 to $10,000 typically, but they can cover your immediate treatment costs while the larger claim is still being worked out. No proving fault. No waiting. It just pays.
Check whether you have it. If you do, use it now.
Your Health Insurance Will Help But Comes With a Catch
Use it. Don’t avoid your health insurance because you’re worried about what happens later. You need treatment and you need it now. The subrogation issue, where your health insurer gets reimbursed from your eventual recovery, gets handled later and is usually negotiable. What’s not negotiable is getting proper care during recovery.
The subrogation amount is often reduced in negotiations, particularly when total recovery is limited relative to total damages. An attorney handles this routinely. Don’t let it stop you from getting treated.
What to Do Right Now
If you’re in this situation today, here’s where to put your energy.
Pull out your insurance policy and actually read the UM and UIM sections. Know the numbers. Know whether stacking is available under your policy language. If you can’t find the policy, call your agent today and ask them to walk through your coverage line by line.
Document everything the injury cost you. Every bill, every appointment, every missed shift, every dollar out of pocket. If your doctor has told you what treatment is coming, get that documented too, because future costs are part of what you’re owed and they need to be on paper.
Do not accept the at-fault driver’s policy limits and sign a full release until you understand what else is available to you. Once that release is signed in the wrong form, it’s over. Most of the time there’s no coming back from it.
And get legal advice before you accept any significant settlement. Most personal injury attorneys in South Carolina work on contingency, meaning nothing upfront and they only collect if you recover money. The consultation is free. The cost of making the wrong decision without one is not.
A South Carolina car accident law firm can go through your coverage, find every available source of recovery, and tell you what the full claim is worth before you make choices that can’t be undone. You can look over the firm’s background and client ratings on their LawInfo profile before you call.
The other driver’s policy being too small doesn’t have to mean you absorb the difference. Your own UM and UIM coverage, stacking, med-pay, health insurance, and sometimes the driver’s own assets are all in play. Most people who leave money on the table in these situations do it because nobody explained any of this to them before they signed something they couldn’t take back.
Author: Kerry L. Tucker
Early in his journalism college years, Kerry Tucker had a revelation: there were not nearly enough law communicators. People’s difficulties in understanding the law, procedures, and how the justice system worked stemmed from the fact that no one took the time to explain complicated matters to them. Therefore, he took upon himself the task of helping people navigate legal matters more easily. He works with attorneys and other legal journalists and spends time researching so that everyone, from a mother whose child got a bike injury to a company needing insurance counsel, can find the actionable answers they are looking for.
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