A car accident on I-26, I-85, or any local street can upend your life in an instant, leaving you with injuries, mounting bills, and an insurance company more focused on its costs than your recovery.
South Carolina law lets you recover from the at-fault driver, generally within three years and as long as you were 50 percent or less at fault, but the available insurance determines what a serious claim can actually collect.
The Arndt Law Firm represents people injured in crashes across Spartanburg and Spartanburg County, helping you pursue all the available insurance coverage to cover the financial and personal costs of your injuries. Call our firm today at (843) 310-4645 so we can review your case. Your first consultation is free.
What you do in the minutes and days after a crash can have an effect on your health and your claim. The first priority is safety and medical care: move to safety if you can, call for help, and accept medical evaluation even if you feel only shaken.
Some crash injuries, including whiplash, concussions, and internal injuries, do not announce themselves immediately. A prompt medical record both protects your health and connects any injury to the crash.
At the scene, gathering information protects a later claim. If you are able, photograph the vehicles, their positions, the damage, the roadway, any skid marks, and the surrounding conditions, and exchange insurance and contact information with the other driver.
Get the names and numbers of any witnesses, and make sure law enforcement responds and documents the crash, since the police report is an important record. Note where exactly the crash occurred and the conditions at the time.
In the days that follow, a few cautions protect the claim. Seek follow-up medical care and follow the treatment plan, since gaps in treatment are used to argue an injury was minor. Be careful in dealings with the insurance companies, especially the at-fault driver's insurer, and think twice before giving a recorded statement or accepting an early settlement offer before the full extent of your injuries is known.
Keep records of everything, from medical bills to missed work, because this documentation builds the claim and can make a meaningful difference when it comes time to establish what the crash has cost.
The caution around the at-fault driver's insurer deserves emphasis, because the contact may come quickly and seem helpful. An adjuster may call within days of a crash, express concern, and offer to resolve the claim, but the offer is usually built on what is known at that early point, which is rarely the full extent of a serious injury.
A recorded statement given in those early days, before the injured person understands their own injuries, can be used as admissions that the insurer later uses to reduce the claim. An early settlement, once accepted, can close the claim for good even if the injury proves far more serious than it first appeared. It’s important to understand and protect the claim before responding to these early approaches.
One of the most important features of a South Carolina car accident claim is the coverage that protects you when the at-fault driver cannot. South Carolina requires every auto policy to include uninsured motorist coverage and to offer underinsured motorist coverage. Uninsured motorist coverage is mandatory and cannot be waived (S.C. Code § 38-77-150); underinsured coverage must be offered and is commonly carried.
This coverage matters because South Carolina's minimum liability limits are low. Under S.C. Code § 38-77-140, the state requires only 25,000 dollars per person and 50,000 dollars per accident in bodily injury coverage.
A serious crash can generate costs far beyond those limits. When the at-fault driver has only minimum coverage, or no coverage at all, the injured person's own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can fill the gap.
South Carolina also allows stacking in certain circumstances, which can multiply the coverage available (S.C. Code § 38-77-160). When a household has multiple vehicles or policies, the uninsured or underinsured coverage on each may be combined, increasing the total available to an injured person.
A concrete example shows how decisive this can be: a person with 150,000 dollars in medical bills and lost income hit by a driver carrying only the 25,000 dollar state minimum would face a large shortfall, but their own underinsured coverage, potentially stacked across household vehicles, can rise to a level that addresses the full loss.
Because the interaction among liability coverage, uninsured and underinsured coverage, and stacking can be complex, identifying all applicable policies is an important part of building a serious car accident claim. A careful review of the injured person's own auto policies is a valuable step in a serious crash claim, and one that is often overlooked.
Many people assume that the at-fault driver's insurance is the only source of recovery, not realizing that their own uninsured and underinsured coverage can apply when that driver carried too little or none, or that coverage on more than one household vehicle may be combined. The same crash and the same injuries can lead to a recovery that falls far short or one that makes the person whole, depending entirely on whether this coverage was identified and pursued.
Examining every policy available to the injured person and their household is therefore a priority from the outset of a serious car accident claim. How these coverages fit together is worth a closer look, because the structure is not intuitive.
Liability coverage belongs to the at-fault driver and pays the people they injure; it is the first source a claim looks to. Uninsured motorist coverage applies to the injured person and steps in when the at-fault driver has no insurance at all or fled and was never identified, as in a hit-and-run. Underinsured motorist coverage, also known as the injured person's own, fills the gap when the at-fault driver has some insurance but not enough to cover the harm.
Stacking, where available, allows the uninsured or underinsured limits on multiple vehicles in a household to be added together, so a family with three insured vehicles may have far more coverage than the limit on any single policy suggests. These layers are why two people with identical injuries from identical crashes can end up with very different recoveries: the difference lies entirely in what coverage was carried and whether it was identified and pursued.
The prevalence of uninsured and underinsured drivers makes this coverage especially important. Despite the legal requirement to carry insurance, a significant share of drivers on the road carry no insurance or only the state minimum, and an injured person has no control over which kind of driver hits them.
A catastrophic injury caused by a driver with a 25,000 dollar policy leaves an enormous gap that only the injured person's own coverage can fill. The difference between a household that carries substantial uninsured and underinsured coverage and one that carries the minimum can be the difference between a recovery that addresses the injury and one that falls hopelessly short. This is why the coverage review is not a formality but a consequential part of a serious car accident claim, and why it deserves attention from the very start.
South Carolina's modified comparative negligence rule, adopted by the state Supreme Court in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 303 S.C. 243, 399 S.E.2d 783 (1991), allows an injured person to recover as long as they were 50 percent or less at fault, reducing the recovery by their percentage, and barring it at 51 percent or more.
Because every percentage point of fault assigned to the injured person reduces the recovery, the at-fault driver's insurer routinely argues that the injured person shared responsibility. Common arguments include that the injured person was speeding, following too closely, distracted, or could otherwise have avoided the crash.
These arguments are met by establishing the facts of the collision through the physical evidence, the police report, witness accounts, and sometimes reconstruction. Where the other driver ran a light, turned across traffic, was distracted, or otherwise caused the crash, the evidence establishes that responsibility and counters the attempt to shift blame.
Fault determination directly affects recovery, making evidence establishing the other driver's responsibility critical in a car accident claim. The police report records the responding officer's observations and any citations, the physical evidence of vehicle damage, and the final positions showing the geometry of the collision.
Surveillance or traffic-camera footage, where it exists, can capture the crash. In disputed cases, a crash reconstruction specialist can analyze the evidence to establish how the collision unfolded. Letting the insurer's version of events go unchallenged invites an inflated assignment of fault to the injured person, while a well-documented account of how the crash actually happened protects the recovery.
The difference between being found 20 percent at fault and 50 percent at fault, or between 50 percent and 51 percent, can dramatically change or eliminate recovery entirely. This is why the early investigation matters so much: the evidence establishing how a crash happened is most readily available right after it occurs, and once it is gathered and preserved, the insurer's effort to shift blame can be met with facts rather than competing assertions.
Car crashes in the Spartanburg area follow recognizable patterns tied to the area's roads and traffic. Distracted driving is a leading cause, as drivers looking at phones or otherwise inattentive fail to react in time. Following too closely produces rear-end collisions, especially in the stop-and-go congestion of busy corridors, and failure to yield at intersections and when turning causes many crashes.
In preliminary data compiled by the South Carolina Department of Public Safety (SCDPS), Spartanburg County had about 190 fatal and serious-injury crashes in 2025.
The area's specific conditions add their own risks. Spartanburg sits at the interchange of I-85 and I-26, one of the busiest commercial-freight crossroads in the Southeast, and the heavy mix of tractor-trailers, automotive-parts shipments, finished vehicles from the BMW plant, and commuter traffic at high speed creates frequent points of conflict.
The I-85 and I-26 interchange in the eastern quadrant of the city is a complex, high-conflict merge area where rear-end and merge collisions occur, and the accident-prone interchanges along I-85, including the exits serving the BMW plant and Greer, and along I-26 toward Inman and Roebuck, see their share of crashes.
The arterials like US-29, US-176, and the connectors serving the city carry heavy local traffic, and the plant-shift commuter surges around the BMW campus add to the volume.
Impaired and reckless driving cause some of the most serious crashes. Drunk driving, speeding, and aggressive driving produce high-energy collisions with severe injuries, and these crashes often involve clear fault and sometimes punitive damages.
The interplay of interstate, freight, commuter, and local traffic on the area's roads creates the conditions in which many crashes occur. Whatever the cause, the question in each case is who was responsible and what coverage is available to address the harm.
Hit-and-run crashes deserve particular mention because they leave an injured person without an at-fault driver to pursue. When a driver flees the scene and is never identified, the injured person cannot make a claim against that driver's liability insurance, since there is none to find.
This is a situation where the injured person's own uninsured motorist coverage becomes essential, because it applies when the at-fault driver cannot be identified, treating the unidentified hit-and-run driver as uninsured.
A prompt report to law enforcement and a thorough effort to identify the fleeing driver, including through witness accounts or nearby camera footage, matter in these cases, both to find the responsible driver and to support the uninsured motorist claim if the driver is never located.
Not every car accident involves only two drivers, and the more complex crashes raise their own questions about who is responsible and which insurance applies. A multi-vehicle pileup, common on a high-speed interstate like I-85 or at the I-85 and I-26 interchange when traffic stops suddenly, or a chain reaction unfolds, can involve several drivers, each of whom may bear a share of responsibility.
In these cases, sorting out the sequence of impacts and each driver's role is a big part of building the claim. The fault analysis determines what each driver and each insurer is responsible for.
These crashes can be especially difficult because the insurers involved often point at one another, each arguing that the other driver bears the primary responsibility, which can stall a claim. The physical evidence, the vehicle damage, witness accounts, and sometimes reconstruction are what cut through this and assign responsibility where it belongs.
An injured person in a multi-vehicle crash may have claims against more than one driver, and every responsible party and applicable policy must be identified to reach the coverage the injury requires.
Other crashes involve parties beyond the drivers. When a crash is caused in part by a defective vehicle component, such as failed brakes, a defective tire, or an airbag that did not deploy, the manufacturer may bear responsibility under product liability principles.
When a dangerous road condition contributed to the accident, such as a poorly designed intersection, missing signage, or a hazard left by a construction project, the government entity or contractor responsible for the road may be liable. A claim against a government entity is subject to the shorter deadlines and procedural steps of the Tort Claims Act.
When the at-fault driver was working at the time of the crash, their employer may be responsible and may carry a commercial policy with higher limits than a personal policy. Identifying these additional responsible parties is part of a thorough investigation, because each can add a source of recovery for a serious injury.
The driver who caused a crash is not always the only party whose conduct mattered, and a complete claim looks beyond the obvious. A rear-end collision may be partly attributable to a third driver who cut off the at-fault driver; a single-vehicle crash may result from a road defect; and a crash involving a commercial vehicle may implicate the company that employed the driver.
The full circumstances of a crash must be carefully examined. This helps support a claim that reaches every responsible party and available source of coverage, which is especially important when the injuries are serious. In an area with the freight and commercial traffic that Spartanburg carries, the possibility that a commercial vehicle or its operator played a role is real, and a thorough investigation should account for it.
Not everyone hurt in a Spartanburg crash was behind the wheel, and the path to recovery looks somewhat different depending on where a person was at the moment of impact.
A passenger injured in a crash is in a stronger position than either driver, because a passenger did not cause the collision and generally is not exposed to a comparative-fault reduction the way a driver might be. A passenger can typically pursue a claim against whichever driver, or drivers, caused the crash, including the driver of the vehicle they were riding in if that driver bore some or all of the fault. When more than one driver contributed, a passenger's claim may be covered by more than one policy.
Pedestrians and cyclists struck by a vehicle face a different dynamic. These crashes commonly happen at intersections, in parking lots, or along the arterials and connectors that carry heavy local traffic through Spartanburg, and they can produce more serious injuries because a person on foot or on a bicycle has no vehicle frame to absorb the impact.
The same fault principles apply: the driver's insurance is the starting point, comparative negligence can still be argued if the pedestrian or cyclist is alleged to have contributed, and the injured person's own uninsured motorist coverage, or a resident relative's policy, may apply if the driver fled or carried no insurance.
Motorcyclists carry a particular burden that other injured people typically do not. Insurance adjusters and, at times, jurors can carry an unspoken bias that a motorcyclist was speeding, weaving, or otherwise assumed a greater risk, even when the evidence shows the other driver failed to see the motorcycle or turned across its path, a common cause of serious motorcycle crashes at intersections along corridors like US-29. Countering that assumption with clear physical evidence and a well-documented account of how the crash happened is an important part of a motorcycle injury claim.
A serious car accident can generate costs that exceed the at-fault driver's insurance coverage, making it essential to identify every available source of recovery for the claim. The starting point is the at-fault driver's liability policy, but because South Carolina's minimum limits are low, a catastrophic injury can quickly surpass them. The search for additional coverage becomes critical to addressing the full harm.
The injured person's own auto coverage is the most important additional source. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, along with any stacking available across household vehicles and policies, can apply when the at-fault driver has too little insurance or none. Reviewing the injured person's policies and those of household members is an essential step that can substantially increase the recovery.
Other parties may also bear responsibility depending on the circumstances. If the at-fault driver was working at the time, an employer's commercial policy may respond, which can provide substantially higher limits than a personal policy, a consideration that arises in an area with heavy commercial and freight traffic.
If more than one driver contributed to the crash, each may bear a share of responsibility and have applicable insurance. If a defective vehicle component or a dangerous road condition contributed, a manufacturer or a government entity responsible for the road may be involved.
A catastrophic injury can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost income. Without additional sources, the injured person can be left with a recovery that falls well short of the actual loss.
When a Spartanburg car accident takes a life, South Carolina law provides two related but distinct legal claims, and knowing the difference matters to the family left behind.
A wrongful death claim, governed by S.C. Code §§ 15-51-10 through 15-51-60, allows certain family members, generally a surviving spouse and children, or if none survive, the parents, or if none survive, the heirs, to recover for their own losses resulting from the death.
These damages can include the financial support the deceased would have provided, the loss of the deceased's care, companionship, guidance, and society, and the survivors' own grief, sorrow, and mental anguish. The claim must be brought by the personal representative of the deceased's estate on behalf of the eligible family members.
A separate survival action, under S.C. Code § 15-5-90, belongs to the estate itself rather than to the family. It allows recovery for what the deceased endured between the crash and death: their own conscious pain and suffering, their medical expenses, and their lost income during that period. Where a wrongful death claim compensates the family for their loss, a survival action compensates the estate for what the deceased personally went through, and the two are often pursued together after a fatal crash.
The deadline for a wrongful death claim is three years, but it runs differently than an ordinary injury claim: the clock begins on the date of death rather than the date of the crash, under S.C. Code § 15-3-530(6). This distinction matters in cases where a person survives for a period of time after the collision before ultimately succumbing to their injuries.
Any settlement of a wrongful death or survival action also requires court approval, a step meant to protect the interests of the beneficiaries and the estate. If the fatal crash occurred on I-85, I-26, or elsewhere in Spartanburg County, identifying every applicable insurance policy, including the at-fault driver's liability coverage and any underinsured motorist coverage carried by the deceased or their household, remains just as important as it would be in a serious injury claim, since the same coverage gaps that shortchange a living victim can shortchange a grieving family.
A car accident claim is worth what the crash has actually cost the injured person, which is usually more than the bills that have arrived by the time an insurer makes its first offer. A recovery must account for the full scope of the harm, and it is an area where an insurer's interest and the injured person's interest most diverge. The insurer wants to value the claim based on documented costs to date; the injured person needs the claim to account for what the injury will require over time.
The economic damages begin with medical expenses, which include not only the emergency care and the treatment received so far, but the future care a serious injury will require. A fracture that needs surgery, a brain injury with cognitive effects, or a spinal injury that causes chronic pain continues to generate costs long after the initial treatment, through follow-up procedures, rehabilitation, therapy, medication, and sometimes lifelong care.
Projecting these future medical costs, often with input from medical professionals, is essential because a settlement built only on the bills incurred so far can leave a seriously injured person without the resources to meet needs that continue for years.
Lost income and earning capacity form another major component. Beyond the wages lost while recovering, a serious injury can reduce or eliminate a person's ability to work in their former occupation.
The loss of future earning capacity can be the largest element of a claim for someone who cannot return to their prior work. Calculating this requires looking at the person's occupation, earnings, and the effect of the injury on their ability to work going forward, which is a forward-looking analysis that an early settlement offer rarely reflects.
The non-economic damages, for pain and suffering, emotional distress, and the loss of enjoyment of life, are no less real for being harder to quantify. A serious injury can bring chronic pain, the loss of activities that give life meaning, and a lasting change in how a person lives.
South Carolina law recognizes these as compensable harms. Conveying them requires showing how the injury has changed the person's daily life, through their own account and the observations of those who know them. A claim that captures only the medical bills and lost wages, without these human consequences, understates what the crash truly cost.
The timing of a settlement matters to whether it reflects the full value of the claim. Settling too early, before the medical picture is clear, is one of the most common ways an injured person ends up with less than the crash actually costs. Some injuries reveal their full severity only over weeks or months, as treatment proceeds and the long-term prognosis becomes clear. A person who settles before that point may discover that the injury requires far more care than the settlement accounted for.
Once a claim is settled and released, it cannot be reopened, even if the injury worsens, which is why understanding the full extent of the harm, including the future medical needs and the effect on earning capacity, before agreeing to a settlement is so important to a recovery that genuinely addresses the injury.
When a car accident injures a child, some of the rules described above work differently. Most significantly, the three-year filing deadline does not run the same way for a minor. Under S.C. Code § 15-3-40, the statute of limitations is paused, or tolled, for as long as the injured person is under 18, and the deadline to file suit extends until one year after that disability ends, meaning a child injured in a Spartanburg crash generally has until their 19th birthday to file a lawsuit, even if the crash happened when they were a toddler.
This is a meaningful protection, but it is not a reason to delay: evidence is still perishable, and a claim is still best pursued while witnesses remember and records are fresh, regardless of how much time the law technically allows.
A parent or legal guardian can bring a claim on a child's behalf before the child turns 18, and in practice, this is usually the better course, since it allows medical bills to be resolved and, where appropriate, a structured settlement or protected account to be established for the child's benefit while memories and documentation are current.
South Carolina law also requires court approval of any settlement made on behalf of a minor, a safeguard intended to make sure the amount is fair and that the funds are properly protected until the child reaches adulthood.
Because a child cannot always describe their own symptoms or the circumstances of the crash the way an adult can, a prompt and thorough medical evaluation, including for injuries like a concussion that may not be obvious in a young child, is especially important both for the child's health and for the claim.
Car accident claims depend on perishable evidence, and the passage of time works against the injured person. The physical evidence at the scene, the position of the vehicles, skid marks, and debris, is cleared away within hours, and the vehicles themselves may be repaired or scrapped before they can be examined. Photographs taken at the scene and prompt documentation preserve this evidence before it disappears.
Other evidence is controlled by parties who have no incentive to preserve it. Nearby businesses or traffic cameras may have captured the crash, but that footage is often overwritten within days or weeks. A prompt request can preserve it.
The busy commercial corridors and the interstate interchanges that carry the area's traffic are lined with businesses and infrastructure whose cameras may have captured a crash, but that footage will not survive long without a preservation request. Witnesses are easiest to identify and their memories are most accurate soon after the crash; they become harder to locate as time passes.
Acting quickly also protects against the insurer's early tactics. When the at-fault driver's insurer reaches out soon after a crash, before the injured person understands the severity of their injuries, an early settlement can close the claim for far less than it is worth.
Car crashes cause a wide range of injuries, from soft-tissue strains and whiplash to fractures, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and other catastrophic harm. The severity depends on the forces involved, and some injuries take time to fully manifest, which is why prompt and continued medical care matters for both health and the claim. When a serious crash occurs in the Spartanburg area, the most critically injured are treated at Spartanburg Medical Center, the area's Level I trauma center.
South Carolina law allows recovery for the full range of harm a crash causes, including economic and non-economic damages discussed above. When a driver's conduct was especially egregious, such as drunk or extremely reckless driving, punitive damages may be available, subject to South Carolina's proof standard and the exceptions that can lift the usual cap. The injured person's own uninsured and underinsured coverage may also be used to cover medical expenses and other damages.
The traffic that moves through Spartanburg gives its car crashes a particular character, shaped by the area's role as a freight and manufacturing hub. The interchange of I-85 and I-26 funnels an enormous volume of commercial traffic through the area, and a passenger vehicle sharing those roads with tractor-trailers, car-haulers carrying finished vehicles, and supplier trucks faces a different risk profile than one on an ordinary commuter road.
A crash that involves a heavy commercial vehicle, even when the commercial vehicle is not entirely at fault, tends to produce more severe injuries because of the size and weight disparity, and it can introduce additional responsible parties and additional insurance into the claim.
The plant-shift rhythm of the area adds its own pattern. The BMW campus and the automotive-supplier operations around it draw a large workforce that travels the interstates and arterials at shift change, concentrating commuter traffic into particular windows and corridors.
The mixing of this commuter surge with the constant freight traffic on I-85 creates congestion and sudden slowdowns that lead to rear-end and chain-reaction crashes, especially at merge points and interchanges where traffic converges.
A driver injured in one of these crashes faces the same comparative-fault and coverage questions as any other crash victim, but the involvement of commercial traffic and the dynamics of freight corridors are among the factors an investigation must account for.
These corridor dynamics also affect the evidence. A crash on I-85 or at the I-85 and I-26 interchange may have been captured by traffic cameras or by the dashboard cameras that many commercial vehicles now carry, and the commercial vehicles involved may have electronic data that records their operation. Evidence that can establish how a crash on a busy freight corridor unfolded must be collected to build a truck accident claim.
The same freight-corridor character that makes these crashes more severe also means more potential sources of evidence and usually more potential sources of coverage, which a thorough investigation pursues.
South Carolina is an at-fault state, which means the at-fault driver's insurer is ultimately responsible for the harm they caused, but that insurer typically will not pay anything until the claim resolves, often months or longer after the crash. In the meantime, medical bills keep arriving. Several sources, such as MedPay and health insurance, commonly cover care during this gap.
Health insurance is usually the first and fastest option, and many injured people are surprised to learn their health plan can be billed for crash-related treatment the same as any other injury.
Medical Payments coverage, also called MedPay, is an optional part of many South Carolina auto policies that pays medical expenses regardless of fault, typically up to a set limit such as 1,000 dollars to 5,000 dollars. It can be claimed quickly without waiting on a liability determination.
Where neither is available or sufficient, some providers will treat a patient under a letter of protection, an agreement that payment will come out of the eventual settlement rather than upfront. This coordination creates its own set of obligations. If a health insurer or MedPay carrier pays medical bills related to the crash, it typically has a right of reimbursement, known as subrogation, from any settlement or verdict later obtained from the at-fault driver.
South Carolina does not have a single, comprehensive hospital lien statute the way some states do, but a hospital or provider that treats a patient under a letter of protection, or a health plan that pays claims and reserves its subrogation rights under the policy, functions in a similar way: a portion of the eventual recovery is set aside to satisfy what is owed.
Sorting out these competing claims against a settlement, so the injured person keeps as much of the recovery as possible, is part of resolving a serious car accident case. It is worth confirming that any lien or reimbursement claim is accurate and properly reduced before payment.
Spartanburg sits entirely within Spartanburg County, which makes the venue for a car accident case straightforward. Civil suits arising from a Spartanburg crash are heard in the Court of Common Pleas for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, which covers Spartanburg and Cherokee counties, with the county judicial center located on Magnolia Street in downtown Spartanburg.
Smaller civil matters fall to the county magistrate court, while the significant personal injury claims proceed in the Court of Common Pleas. This single-county structure removes any question about which county's court applies, simplifying one of the early practical questions in a car accident claim.
Most claims settle without a trial, but filing suit within the deadline preserves the injured person's rights and strengthens their position in negotiations. If a fair settlement is not reached, the case can proceed to trial in the Seventh Circuit. Knowing the venue is part of properly handling a Spartanburg car accident case.
The area's interstate-heavy geography can occasionally raise questions about where a crash occurred and which jurisdiction applies, particularly for crashes on I-85 or I-26 near county lines or involving out-of-county or out-of-state drivers.
The crash location and the parties’ residency must be confirmed to determine the proper court venue. If the crash occurred in Spartanburg County, the case falls within the Seventh Judicial Circuit. These details are addressed as part of building the claim, so the injured person does not have to sort them out on their own.
Because the area’s interstates carry significant through traffic, including drivers from neighboring states traveling the Atlanta-to-Charlotte corridor, residency and venue issues can arise more frequently than they might in communities farther from major interstate routes. That makes it especially important to confirm these details early in the process.
| Coverage type | What it does |
| Liability (at-fault driver) | Pays for harm the at-fault driver caused, up to policy limits |
| Uninsured motorist (UM) | Mandatory; covers you when the at-fault driver has no insurance |
| Underinsured motorist (UIM) | Covers the gap when the at-fault driver's limits are too low |
| Stacking | May combine coverage across vehicles or policies in a household |
Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can apply. Uninsured coverage is mandatory in South Carolina, and stacking across household policies may increase what is available.
Three years from the date of the crash under S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5). The South Carolina Tort Claims Act generally shortens the deadline to two years (three years if a verified claim is filed with the agency within one year) and caps damages at $300,000 per person and $600,000 per occurrence.
Yes, as long as you were 50 percent or less at fault. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage, and barred entirely at 51 percent or more.
Be cautious. Early offers are often made before the full extent of injuries is known and tend to favor the insurer. It is wise to understand the claim's value first.
Spartanburg is entirely within Spartanburg County, so a significant car accident suit is heard in the Court of Common Pleas for the Seventh Judicial Circuit at the county judicial center on Magnolia Street.
At The Arndt Law Firm, we take the time to understand what happened, explain your options, and build a claim focused on your recovery.
We start by establishing who was responsible for the crash and identifying every available source of insurance coverage. That can include the at-fault driver's policy as well as your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. We also work to document your injuries, medical treatment, lost income, and other losses so your claim reflects the full impact of the accident.
Insurance companies may try to minimize a claim or argue that you share responsibility for the crash. Jonathan Arndt's experience defending insurance companies gives him insight into how insurers evaluate and challenge car accident claims. He uses that knowledge to anticipate their arguments and protect your interests.
If you were injured in a car accident in Spartanburg or anywhere in Spartanburg County, contact us. Our firm provides personalized attention, handle cases on a contingency basis, and never charges a fee unless we recover compensation for you. Your initial consultation is free.
Last reviewed: June 2026
This page was reviewed by Jonathan S. Arndt, licensed in South Carolina since 2018.
Content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
