What are your rights as a passenger when you’re involved in an auto accident?

The interesting thing about being a passenger in an automobile collision is that ultimately who is at fault for the car wreck really doesn’t matter. The only difference is who you’re making your auto accident claim against. If your friend or relative who’s driving the vehicle did something and they contributed to the collision and they are in fact marked at fault by the police, then what has to happen at that point is instead of you making a claim against the other driver’s insurance company, you make a claim against the auto policy that actually is carried on the car by your friend or your relative.

This may seem like a conflict of interest but in fact it’s not. The whole purpose behind having insurance on your car is for precisely this reason and a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their head around that concept. You’re not actually making a claim against your friend or your relative. You’re making a claim against the auto insurance policy that is actually attached to the car that you’re driving in because under South Carolina law, your liability policy or your own insurance policy is actually portable and comes with you regardless of what car you’re driving in.

It’s attached to the car. So the point is, is if you’re in a car wreck and your driver is in fact at fault, you would make a claim against the auto insurance policy that is on that car that you are riding in. If the opposite were true and the defendant is in fact at fault, then you would make a claim against that auto insurance policy and all of that is the sort of thing that an attorney is going to have to help sort out. The police and their investigation is going to help sort it out as well.

Then eventually the two insurance companies are going to come to some sort of agreement about who is actually at fault. There can be a situation where in fact both drivers are equally at fault for the car wreck. In which case, you would submit your medical records, your bills, your injuries and all that to both insurance companies and they would pay it 50-50. So you would get half of your proceeds from one insurance company and half of the proceeds from the other.

But it makes no matter to you because the whole point is that you will be made whole at the end of the process because all of your medical bills have been paid. You’ve been compensated for your pain and suffering and any potential long term permanent injury that you might have received as a result of the car collision.

So as a passenger in South Carolina, you’re always going to be protected and that’s generally a very good thing.

If you are a passenger or you’ve been involved in a car accident, I would strongly encourage you to pick up the telephone and call The Hartman Law Firm, LLC at 843-300-7600.