How Long to File a Car Wreck Lawsuit in Georgia?
Georgia gives you a limited window to settle your car wreck claim or file suit — here's what that deadline means for you.
You were hit by another driver. Maybe you’re still treating with a doctor, maybe you’re waiting on the insurance company to make you an offer, or maybe you’ve just been trying to get your life back to normal and haven’t thought much about the legal side of things yet. Then someone mentions a deadline — and suddenly you’re wondering whether the clock has been running this whole time without you realizing it.
It has been. In Georgia, you don’t get to sit on a car wreck claim indefinitely, and missing the window doesn’t just weaken your case. It ends it.
Georgia Gives You Two Years After a Car Wreck
The statute of limitations for a car wreck in Georgia is two years. That means if you’re in a collision today, you have two years to either settle your case with the insurance company or file a lawsuit in court. There is no third option. You can’t wait five years to get around to it, and you certainly can’t sue someone ten years down the road because you were still upset about what happened.
If that deadline passes without a settlement or a filed lawsuit, the at-fault driver’s insurance company has no reason to pay you anything at all — because you no longer have the ability to make them.
Why Two Years Goes Faster Than You Think
Two years sounds generous when you’re sitting in the emergency room. In practice, it moves quickly.
Serious injuries take time to treat. You may go through months of physical therapy, injections, or a surgery followed by a long recovery. Most claims shouldn’t be settled until you know what your medical picture actually looks like, because once you sign a release, you can’t go back for more if your condition turns out to be worse than anyone thought.
Then there’s the insurance side. Adjusters request records. Records take weeks to arrive. Offers get made, countered, and re-evaluated. Negotiations stall. All of that eats calendar, and none of it pauses the deadline. A claim that felt like it had plenty of runway can suddenly be a few months from expiring while you’re still waiting on a callback.
Settling and Filing Are Not the Same Thing
A lot of people assume that because they’ve been talking to an adjuster, they’re protected. They’re not. Ongoing conversations with an insurance company do not preserve your rights. Neither does a verbal promise to “get this resolved soon.”
The only things that stop the clock are a completed settlement or a lawsuit actually filed with the court. Until one of those happens, the deadline keeps running no matter how cooperative the other side seems. And insurance companies know this. Slow-walking a claim toward the deadline is not an accident — it’s a strategy that pays off when a claimant runs out of time and loses all leverage.
What to Do With the Time You Have
Start early. The best-positioned cases are the ones where someone has been gathering evidence, documenting injuries, and building the file from the beginning — not scrambling in the final weeks.
Get medical treatment and stay consistent with it. Gaps in treatment give insurers an argument that you weren’t really hurt. Keep track of your bills, your out-of-pocket costs, and the time you’ve missed from work. Preserve photographs, the police report, and the names of anyone who saw what happened.
And talk to a lawyer well before your deadline is close. An attorney can evaluate whether your case is realistically settleable within the window or whether a lawsuit needs to be filed to protect you. That decision is much easier to make with time on your side than with weeks left.
Speeding Tickets and Points on Your License
One related question that comes up constantly from Georgia drivers: how fast can you go over the speed limit before points hit your license? The answer is 14. At 14 miles per hour over, you may still get a ticket, but you may not pick up points.
That’s a separate issue from a wreck, of course. Speed can still matter in a collision case regardless of what points a citation carries. But it’s worth knowing where that line sits.
Full Transcript
Do you know what the statute of limitations is if you get in a car wreck in Georgia — how long you have to either resolve your case or file a lawsuit?
So basically, if you get into a car wreck, you can’t sue them ten years down the road. You only have a certain amount of time to do it. So do you know how long it is?
So in Georgia, it’s two years. So basically, if you get into a car wreck today, you have to either settle your case or you have to file a lawsuit within two years.
How fast can you go over the speed limit without getting any points on your license? So the answer is 14. So if you’re doing 14 miles an hour over the speed limit, you may get a ticket, but you may not get any points.