Commercial truck collisions almost always trigger early contact from one or more insurance adjusters representing the trucking company, its excess insurers, the broker, or the carrier’s risk management department. Adjusters are trained professionals whose job is to evaluate, control, and ideally minimize the carrier’s exposure. This guide describes the recurring tactics that injured Georgians and their families encounter after a serious truck crash, the legal context in which those tactics occur, and the categories of conduct that Georgia law regulates.
Why adjuster contact comes so quickly
Commercial trucking insurers typically dispatch a rapid-response team to the scene of a serious crash, sometimes within hours. The team may include an adjuster, an accident reconstructionist, a defense attorney, and a cleanup contractor. The early visit serves several legitimate functions: documenting the scene, downloading vehicle data, and arranging for towing. It also gives the carrier an evidentiary head start, often before the injured person has been discharged from the hospital. Injured parties typically do not have a parallel response team in place.
Tactic: the early recorded statement
One of the most common adjuster requests in the days after a crash is a recorded statement from the injured person. The adjuster may frame the request as routine, helpful, or a precondition for processing the claim.
Several practical issues attend the early recorded statement. The injured person may still be on pain medication that affects memory and articulation. The full extent of the injuries may not yet be known: certain conditions, including traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress, and herniated discs, can take weeks or months to manifest. Statements made in this period can later be used to suggest the injuries were minor, or to lock the injured person into a description of the crash that turns out to be incomplete.
Georgia law does not require an injured non-policyholder to provide a recorded statement to a defendant’s insurer. Cooperation obligations apply only between an insured and that insured’s own insurer under the policy.
Tactic: the quick settlement offer
A second pattern is the early, low-dollar settlement offer. The offer may arrive within days or weeks of the crash, before the injured person has reached maximum medical improvement and before the future medical picture is established.
Once a Georgia release is signed and consideration is paid, it generally bars further claims against the released party for the released injuries. Under Georgia law, a general release executed by a competent adult is binding even if the injuries later turn out to be more serious than the parties knew at signing, unless the release is set aside on traditional grounds such as mutual mistake, fraud, or duress.
Tactic: requests for broad medical authorizations
Adjusters frequently ask the injured person to sign broad medical authorizations that allow direct access to the person’s entire medical history. A broad authorization can be used to obtain pre-crash records, look for prior complaints in the same body region, and assemble a story that the current condition is pre-existing rather than caused by the crash.
Georgia law and HIPAA protections allow a more limited authorization tailored to the medical conditions and the time period actually at issue. Targeted authorizations remain the norm in formal litigation discovery once a lawsuit is filed.
Tactic: delay and information control
A different category of tactic involves slowing down the claim or controlling information. Adjusters may delay responding to correspondence, claim that needed documents have not arrived, or refuse to confirm coverage limits. Information control around coverage limits is significant because the available coverage shapes settlement strategy.
Georgia has a specific statute that addresses pre-suit disclosure of insurance information. Under O.C.G.A. 33-3-28, an insurer must, within 60 days of receiving a written request that meets the statutory format, disclose to a claimant or claimant’s attorney the limits of liability under the policy and certain other coverage information. The statutory disclosure can defuse one common form of information control.
Tactic: the friendly framing
Adjusters often communicate in a sympathetic, low-key style. Phrases such as “we are just trying to get this resolved for you,” “we want to take care of our insured’s responsibility,” and “we just need a little more information” are common. The friendly framing serves a function: it can reduce the injured person’s guard and produce voluntary disclosures or statements.
The legal character of the relationship, however, is not friendly. The adjuster is the agent of an insurer whose interests are adverse to the injured party. Georgia courts have recognized that liability insurers are not in a fiduciary relationship with third-party claimants.
Tactic: surveillance and social media
Defense-side investigators and adjusters routinely conduct social media monitoring and physical surveillance of injury claimants. Photos showing activity, video of a claimant lifting groceries, or check-ins at events can be presented out of context to argue that the injuries are exaggerated.
Public social media content is generally accessible and not protected. Even “private” content can sometimes be obtained in discovery if the court finds it relevant. Reasonable awareness of digital footprints is a practical concern.
Tactic: comparative fault arguments
Georgia is a modified comparative-fault jurisdiction under O.C.G.A. 51-12-33. A plaintiff who is 50 percent or more at fault recovers nothing; a plaintiff who is less than 50 percent at fault recovers reduced damages. Adjusters know this and may push narratives that increase the injured party’s share of fault: questions designed to suggest the injured person was speeding, distracted, or could have avoided the crash.
Tactic: undervaluing future damages
In serious-injury cases, the largest dollar components are typically lost earning capacity and future medical expenses. Early settlement offers often understate or ignore these categories because the proof of them requires expert work that has not yet been completed. The pressure to settle before life care planning, vocational evaluation, and economic analysis are done is a recurring feature of these claims.
Tactic: contesting the scope of coverage
Commercial trucking exposures often involve layered policies: the primary auto policy, an MCS-90 federal endorsement, an umbrella policy, and excess layers. Adjusters representing different layers can take inconsistent positions about which layer applies, which can delay any meaningful settlement discussion. Federal motor carrier financial responsibility minimums under 49 C.F.R. Part 387 (typically $750,000 for general freight, higher for hazardous materials) are the floor, but many carriers carry substantially more.
Georgia bad-faith framework
Georgia regulates first-party insurer conduct under O.C.G.A. 33-4-6, which provides a remedy for bad-faith failure to pay a first-party claim. Third-party claims are addressed through O.C.G.A. 9-11-67.1 (which sets out specific requirements for pre-suit time-limited settlement demands in motor vehicle cases) and related case law. The pre-suit demand procedure under 9-11-67.1, when followed precisely, can create exposure beyond policy limits in certain failure-to-settle situations.
Practical observations
Many of the tactics described above are not improper as such. They reflect the adjuster’s role and the carrier’s interests. Awareness of the tactics is the first practical step. Most experienced personal-injury counsel handle communications with the trucking company’s insurer directly so that the injured person is not the one negotiating with a trained adjuster.
Summary
Truck-crash victims in Georgia commonly encounter early recorded statement requests, quick low-dollar offers, broad medical authorizations, delay, friendly framing, surveillance, comparative-fault arguments, undervaluation of future damages, and coverage disputes. The Georgia statutory framework (including O.C.G.A. 33-3-28 coverage disclosure and 9-11-67.1 pre-suit demand procedures) and the federal financial responsibility minimums under 49 C.F.R. Part 387 set the legal context in which these interactions take place.
Disclaimer
This article is provided strictly for general educational and informational purposes. It is intended to explain how Georgia law works as a matter of public legal education, and it does not constitute legal advice, a legal opinion, or a recommendation about any particular course of action. Reading this article, or contacting the website on which it appears, does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and any law firm, attorney, or author.
The law changes over time. Statutes, regulations, court rules, and judicial decisions discussed here may have been amended, repealed, superseded, or reinterpreted after the date of publication, and citations to specific code sections or cases reflect the law only as it was understood when this article was written. The application of any legal principle also depends heavily on the specific facts and circumstances of an individual matter, and outcomes vary from case to case.
For these reasons, no one should rely on this article as a substitute for advice from a licensed Georgia attorney who can review the particular facts involved. The author and publisher make no warranty, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or applicability of the information provided, and disclaim any liability for any action taken or not taken based on this content.