Commercial Truck Accidents • 9 min read
Filing a claim with a trucking company’s insurance can be a complicated process. We provide you with the guidance you need to move forward.
Key Takeaways
Filing a claim with a trucking company's insurance in South Carolina comes down to three things: finding out which insurance company covers the truck, getting a claim number in writing, and protecting the truck's records before they're gone. Being injured in an accident with a semi or a delivery truck isn't the same as a car wreck, and the process usually has more moving parts than you would expect.
When filing a truck accident claim, you’re going against a commercial insurance company, not just a personal auto policy. The process can be overwhelming, but you don’t have to do this on your own; Armada Law Injury Attorneys is here to help. Here’s what the process looks like so you can decide how much of it you want to handle yourself.
Depending on who’s at fault for the truck accident, you may be filing your claim against:
In truck accidents, more than one company is often responsible, and each can carry its own insurance policy. It all depends on how your accident happened, which is why the first real step in filing a claim is finding out whose insurance you're actually dealing with.
There are two ways to learn which insurance company to contact, and most people never hear about either one.
The FR-10, or “the green form,” is South Carolina’s insurance verification form. It comes into play after a crash that injures or kills someone, or that causes apparent property damage of $1,000 or more. If a police officer comes to the scene, the FR-10 gets filled out there and returned to SCDMV within 15 days. If a police officer does not show up, you have 15 days to file that report.
The FR-10 form and the collision report the officer files should give you what you need: the name of the insurance company, the policy number, and the driver and truck details.
If the truck crosses state lines, its insurance is also on file with the federal government. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration keeps public licensing and insurance records you can search for free using the company name or its DOT number, usually printed on the door of the cab. That's a useful backup when the FR-10 is slow to arrive or the information you got at the scene was incomplete.
Once you know who the insurer is, the claim itself follows a predictable path. Here's the order that you should follow:
Plenty of people handle the early steps fine on their own. However, if you’re injured, out of work, or the process simply starts to feel like more than you can handle, it’s worth speaking to one of our truck accident lawyers in South Carolina. We'll help you gather what you need, and handle the insurance company's calls so you can focus on healing.
Trucking company insurance policy limits are much higher than the ones on a regular car policy. Here’s what federal rules require from companies hauling freight across state lines:
| What the truck is hauling | Federal minimum liability coverage |
| General, non-hazardous freight Oil and certain hazardous materials Explosives, poison gas, and radioactive materials | $750,000 $1,000,000 $5,000,000 |
South Carolina only requires $25,000 in bodily injury coverage per person for a regular car, so the difference is enormous. However, it’s important to know that a bigger policy doesn’t equal an easier claim. It just means the insurance company has more to lose, which is why the process can feel adversarial and why a first offer often shows up quickly.
A commercial truck records things a car never does. They have an electronic logging device that tracks the driver's hours, and a “black box” that can capture speed, braking, and exactly what the truck was doing right before impact. The company also stores driver logs, inspection records, and maintenance history.
None of it is stored forever. Trucking companies are only required to hold drivers' records and supporting documents for six months. In some instances, the data may get written over on a shorter cycle, meaning once it’s gone, it’s gone. If you send a preservation letter early on, that makes the trucking company legally required to hold on to the records because they may be used as evidence.
After your commercial truck accident, the adjuster may call within a day or two, ask for a recorded statement, and send over an offer shortly after. This is not unusual, but none of it means that the claim is in your favor.
The trucking company’s insurance company won’t share much. It only has to tell you whether it accepts or denies your claim, not why a decision is taking so long or where things stand in the process.
Sometimes the company or its owner will offer to pay you directly and skip insurance altogether. For a scraped bumper, that can be harmless. After an injury it’s a real risk, because you may not yet know the full extent of your injury or what your recovery will cost. Signing that kind of offer usually closes the door on asking that company for anything more later.
Here’s a list of things you should do, and avoid doing, when speaking to an adjuster:
Handling your truck accident claim may seem doable on your own, especially if it was a minor accident with little damage to your vehicle, and fault is clear. However, in more serious situations like these, handling it without a truck accident lawyer could hurt you in the long run:
Even if you have minor injuries, it’s always good to just consult with a lawyer. Truck accident lawyers, including our team at Armada Law Injury Attorneys, will talk through your situation at no cost and with no commitment, so it doesn’t hurt to know where you stand from someone who goes up against insurance companies every day.
You generally have three years from the date of the accident to file your commercial truck accident lawsuit. Although that sounds like plenty of time, the evidence clock runs much faster than the filing deadline, so it helps to start as soon as you can.
Trucking companies sometimes classify drivers as independent contractors, and that label on its own doesn’t settle who is responsible. What matters is how the arrangement actually worked: who set the schedule and routes, whose name and DOT number were on the truck, and who owned the trailer and cargo. A federally registered trucking company can also be responsible for a truck running under its authority even when the driver isn't technically on payroll. If the company tells you the driver was "just a contractor" and leaves it there, treat that as the start of the conversation, not the end of it.
If the trucking company denies your claim, that is not the end, but it means you need to prove what happened with hard evidence. An apology or fault admission at the scene of the accident from the truck driver is not hard evidence, but the collision report, photos, and medical records carry most of the weight. If you’ve been seriously injured in an accident, your focus should be on getting better, not going back and forth with the insurance company. If they denied your claim, contact one of our truck accident attorneys who can guide you through the next steps.
A truck accident claim asks a lot of you at a time when you may not have much to give. If you’re unsure where your claim stands and what comes next, that’s normal. Let the truck accident team at Armada Law Injury Attorneys guide you through this process and help you understand the best path forward for your case. We are here, whenever you're ready; call 833-332-3128 or reach us through our contact page.
Written and Reviewed by: Chris Carsten
You don’t have to face insurance companies alone. Tell us what happened and start your recovery.Contact Armada Law today for a free case review and let us help you get your life back on track.
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