Hit and Run Accident Lawyer in Alabama

Who pays when the driver is never found, and who pays when the driver is found?

When the driver is never identified, the claim goes to uninsured motorist coverage. Ala. Code 32-7-6 requires liability insurance on every registered vehicle, and Alabama insurers must offer uninsured motorist coverage on every policy they sell. Most Alabama drivers keep it. It pays the medical costs, lost wages and pain and suffering the fleeing driver would have owed, up to the limit on the policy, and it is often the only money in the case.

The coverage can sit in more than one place. Your own policy is the starting point. A policy belonging to a relative who lives with you can respond, and a passenger can look to the policy on the vehicle they were in. Alabama policies differ on whether limits from several vehicles or several policies can be added together, and the answer is in the policy language. We gather every declarations page in the household before we say what is available.

Alabama has no public fund for a victim whose household carries no coverage. For that person the claim lives or dies with the identification of the driver, and the search for a plate, a vehicle description or a camera angle is the case itself. Underinsured motorist coverage matters once a driver is found and turns out to carry only the minimum.

When the driver is found, that driver's liability insurer takes the primary position and your own coverage moves to the underinsured layer if the limits are too low. Ala. Code 32-10-1 requires a driver in an injury crash to stop and remain at the scene, and a conviction for leaving is admissible in the civil case, where it also supports the wantonness claim. A driver who was working brings in the employer's commercial policy, and a driver in a borrowed car brings in the owner's.

How much is an Alabama hit and run claim worth?

The measure is what the crash cost you: hospital and doctor bills, the future treatment your physicians expect, lost pay and benefits, reduced earning power, and out of pocket expenses on one side, and pain, scarring, lost activities and the strain on a family on the other. Alabama has no injury threshold and no general cap on these damages in a claim against a private driver or an uninsured motorist carrier.

Two ceilings apply. The first is coverage. When the driver is never found, the uninsured motorist limit on every policy that responds is the most the claim can pay, regardless of the injury. The second is fault, and in Alabama it is not a percentage but a switch. A claim that contributory negligence turns off pays nothing, which is why the proof that you did nothing wrong is worth as much as the medical records.

Within those limits, severity sets the range. A strain treated with therapy sits low. A fracture, a disc injury with injections or a concussion with lingering symptoms sits higher. Surgery, a brain injury or a spinal cord injury exhausts most uninsured motorist limits and makes finding the driver, and any employer or owner behind the driver, the difference between a partial recovery and a full one.

Venue plays a part. An uninsured motorist dispute that reaches the Jefferson County Circuit Court, the Madison County Circuit Court or the Mobile County Circuit Court is valued by adjusters against how juries in those counties have treated injury claims. We do not name a figure until your doctors can describe your future, because a number offered earlier is a guess that helps the insurer. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

What if your own insurer denies or lowballs the uninsured motorist claim?

Expect resistance. Your carrier owes you good faith, but it evaluates an uninsured motorist claim as a paying party, and Alabama's fault rule hands it a powerful tool. If an adjuster can attach any share of blame to you, you glanced at your phone, you were a few miles over on I-459, you stepped off the curb outside the crosswalk, the company can deny the claim entirely. Its recorded statement is where those arguments are collected.

The other common denials concern the policy's own conditions. Every Alabama policy describes what it requires in a hit and run: how quickly the crash must be reported to police, how and when the company must be notified, and what proof of the other vehicle it expects. Those terms vary from one form to the next, so we read the actual policy and measure what was done against it, and we explain any gap with the medical emergency or the circumstances that caused it.

Then come the injury arguments, that your MRI shows age rather than trauma, that a gap in treatment means you recovered, that the bills were excessive. These are answered by your treating doctors, objective imaging and an unbroken record of care. On the existence of the other vehicle, the paint on your bumper, the debris in the road and footage from a business facing US 72 answer the argument better than any statement can.

Many Alabama policies allow the insurer to be sued directly on the uninsured motorist claim, and some send it to arbitration. We take the path the policy allows, in the Circuit Court for the county when suit is permitted, and use discovery to obtain the adjuster's file. An insurer that denies a valid claim without a reasonable basis faces its own exposure under Alabama law, and we put that on the table in writing when the facts warrant it.

How long do you have to file a hit and run claim in Alabama?

Ala. Code 6-2-38 gives two years from the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, and a wrongful death action must be filed within two years of the death by the personal representative of the estate. Two years is the outside limit against an identified driver. A suit against your own insurer on the uninsured motorist coverage may run on a different clock depending on the policy and the nature of the claim, and we treat the earliest possible date as the deadline.

The dates that actually end Alabama hit and run claims are in the policy. Carriers require that a hit and run be reported to police within a short window, sometimes a day, and that the company be told promptly, sometimes in writing. A victim who waits to see whether the pain passes and then calls can be told that the coverage was forfeited. We open the claim and satisfy each condition in the first days, and document any delay that has already occurred.

A public vehicle changes the timeline entirely. If a MAX bus in Birmingham, a city police car or a county truck was the vehicle that left, a sworn written claim must be filed with the clerk within a period measured in months, and a defective claim can end the case. Public vehicles rarely flee, but contractors working for cities and counties do, and we check the owner of every identified vehicle for that reason.

Evidence expires fastest. Business camera systems overwrite within days. License plate reader data kept by police agencies is retained for a limited time. Paint transfer vanishes at the body shop. The two year statute protects the right to sue and does nothing for the proof, which in a contributory negligence state is the entire case. In a hit and run, the evidence is also the only way the driver gets found.

What should you do in the first 72 hours after an Alabama hit and run?

Call 911 and stay at the scene. Inside the cities, the Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile or Tuscaloosa police will respond; on the interstates and county roads it is usually an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency trooper. Describe the vehicle while it is fresh: color, make, body style, where it was damaged, any part of the plate, the direction it went and anything about the driver. Get the report number and confirm that the report says the driver left.

See a doctor the same day. UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Huntsville Hospital and USA Health University Hospital in Mobile are the state's Level I trauma centers, Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery and DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa serve their regions, and an urgent care visit documents a minor injury. Tell each provider that a driver hit you and fled, so the records say so from the first page.

Preserve what the other vehicle left. Photograph the paint transfer on your car, the plastic and glass on the road, the position of your vehicle and the marks on the pavement before anything is moved or washed. Fragments of a headlight or grille carry part numbers that identify a make and model, and the paint color narrows the year range. Keep the car out of the body shop until it has been photographed thoroughly.

Find cameras and witnesses before leaving. Gas stations, storefronts, apartment gates, traffic signals, MAX buses and residential doorbells record the road, and their footage is overwritten inside a week. Take the name and number of anyone who stopped, since a witness who caught part of a plate is the most common way a fleeing driver is found. Police license plate readers along the interstates and at intersections log vehicles, and an officer can search them if the report is filed quickly.

Notify your own insurer within a day, say that it was a hit and run and ask that an uninsured motorist claim be opened. Do not discuss fault with anyone but your lawyer, including the adjuster, including social media, because in Alabama a single sentence conceding a small mistake can end the claim. Keep every bill and every missed shift from the first day.

What Your Claim Can Cover

• Uninsured motorist claims on your own policy
• Claims through a household member's policy
• State backstop funds where they exist
• Camera, plate reader and witness investigation
• Medical benefits while the driver is unknown