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A Sworn Answer on the At-Fault Driver's Coverage Within 60 Days
After a serious Georgia crash, you can find out how much liability insurance the at-fault driver carries before you decide anything about your claim.
Under O.C.G.A. § 33-3-28, the driver's insurer must answer a proper written request within 60 days.
The answer is a sworn statement naming the insurer, each insured, and the limits on every known policy it issued, umbrella and excess policies included.
The insurer can send a copy of each declarations page instead.
The at-fault driver has a separate duty to name every known insurer within 30 days of a written request.
If the answer comes back at Georgia's $25,000 minimum, the claim moves to your own coverage and to a demand built around that number.
Lawsuit Legal can send the request and read the answer with you, and you pay nothing unless your case recovers.
What O.C.G.A. § 33-3-28 Requires a Georgia Insurer to Disclose
The statute reaches every insurer that provides liability or casualty coverage in Georgia and is or may be liable to pay part of your claim. Once that company receives your written request, it has 60 days to deliver a statement, under oath, from a corporate officer or its claims manager.[1] The statement covers each known policy the company issued, excess and umbrella policies included, and gives three facts for each one: the name of the insurer, the name of each insured, and the limits of coverage.
A copy of each policy's declarations page can stand in for the sworn statement. Either way, you learn the per-person and per-accident bodily injury limits, the two numbers that every later decision in the claim is measured against. The statute calls for names and limits, or the declarations page, and does not require the insurer to hand over the full policy.
Two parts of the statute protect the insurer, and you should know them going in. The disclosure does not waive any defense the company has to coverage, so an insurer that reports a policy can still argue later that the policy does not cover this crash. The statement also stays out of evidence at trial unless some other Georgia rule makes it admissible. The insurer must amend its answer when it learns facts that contradict or add to what it reported, such as a second policy it missed the first time.
Treat the sworn limits as the ceiling the insurer has admitted to, and expect any fight over whether the coverage applies to come up separately.
The Certified-Mail Request That Starts the Insurer's Clock
The 60 days run from the day the insurer receives a written request, and the statute is specific about what that request says and how it travels. It must set out, under oath, the specific nature of the claim, and it must reach the insurer by certified mail or statutory overnight delivery. The request is a short letter, and it sits at the start of personal injury representation across Georgia, before any demand or negotiation.
Required by the statute: A written request from the claimant that sets out, under oath, the specific nature of the claim
Required delivery: Certified mail or statutory overnight delivery to the insurer
Practical details the statute does not list: Your name, the at-fault driver's and the vehicle owner's names, the date and place of the crash, the claim number if one exists, and the crash report number, so the insurer can find the policy
What comes back: A sworn statement or declarations page for each known policy the insurer issued, excess and umbrella included
Insurer's deadline: 60 days from receipt of the request
Separate letter to the at-fault driver: The name of every known insurer that may be liable, due within 30 days
The statute also gives the insurer a way to push back on a thin request. If the letter does not give it enough information to comply, the insurer can say so in writing and name the specific information it needs, and that reply counts as compliance. A request that leaves out the insured's name or the claim number can use up the 60 days and produce a letter asking for more instead of the limits.
A complete first request puts the coverage number in your hands about 60 days after the insurer signs for it, and a thin one can double that wait.
Why the At-Fault Driver Has 30 Days to Name Every Insurer
The insurer's sworn statement covers only the policies that company issued. If the driver also carries an umbrella with a different company, or was driving a car insured under someone else's policy, that coverage will not appear in the first insurer's answer.
Subsection (a)(2) of the statute closes much of that gap. The insured, meaning the at-fault driver, has 30 days from a written request by you or your lawyer to disclose the name of each known insurer that may be liable on the claim. That letter can go out the same day as the request to the insurer, so both answers arrive inside the same window.
When the crash involved a work vehicle, a borrowed car, or a household with several policies, the driver's list is where a second source of money would show up.
An Illustrative Answer at Georgia's $25,000 Minimum
The following is a hypothetical, written to show how the numbers interact. It does not describe any client or any case result.
A driver runs a red light and hits your car. Within a few months your hospital bills and lost wages pass $80,000. You send the § 33-3-28 request, and the sworn statement comes back:
- One policy, one insured. The at-fault driver is the only insured, with bodily injury limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident.
- No excess or umbrella coverage. The insurer reports none, and the driver's own 30-day answer names no other insurer.
- The shortfall. Your bills and lost wages exceed the per-person limit by more than $55,000 before pain and suffering is counted.
The answer caps what this one policy will pay, and it points to the next three places to look: your own uninsured motorist coverage, any other policy that applies, and a properly drafted demand for the $25,000.
Before anyone accepts the other driver's $25,000, we make sure the paperwork that takes it leaves the UM claim standing. A limited release exists for that purpose, and a general release signed in the relief of finally being paid can end the claim against the client's own carrier along with it.
How a $50,000 Per-Accident Limit Splits Among Several Injured People
Georgia's minimum liability coverage is set through O.C.G.A. § 40-9-37, which adopts the amounts in the state's uninsured motorist statute: $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 for injuries to two or more people in one crash, subject to the per-person cap, and $25,000 for property damage.[2] A minimum-limits disclosure reads in that same form, $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident.
When more than one person is hurt, the per-accident figure becomes the ceiling for everyone combined. Three injured passengers cannot each collect $25,000 from a 25/50 policy, because the policy pays $50,000 in total for the crash. Georgia courts also allow an insurer, acting in good faith, to settle some of several claims against its insured even when those settlements use up the policy and leave later claimants with no recourse against that insurer.[3]
Your own UM coverage follows the same per-person and per-accident structure, and its statutory minimum is the same 25,000 and $50,000, so a minimum UM policy shared by several injured family members in one car runs out the same way.
If you are one of several people hurt, the limits answer tells you the money is shared, and waiting can leave less of it for you.
Is Your Own Uninsured Motorist Coverage Added-On or Reduced-By?
A minimum-limits answer turns the claim toward your own policy. A Georgia auto policy has to include uninsured motorist coverage unless a named insured rejects it in writing, and when the at-fault driver carries liability insurance and you carry UM coverage, the statute treats that driver's vehicle as uninsured for purposes of your UM claim.[4]
How much your coverage adds depends on an election made on paper when the policy was bought. Under the default, called added-on coverage, your UM limits apply in addition to what the at-fault policy pays, up to your total economic and noneconomic losses. If a named insured chose the other option in writing, called reduced-by coverage, your UM limits shrink by the at-fault driver's available coverage, so a $25,000 UM policy behind a $25,000 liability policy can add nothing. Your declarations page and the UM selection form show which of Georgia's two kinds of UM coverage you bought.
Read a personal umbrella policy separately. Georgia's UM requirement does not extend to umbrella or excess policies unless the policy or an endorsement affirmatively provides the coverage, so an umbrella can sit above your auto policy and still pay nothing on an underinsured-driver claim. The amounts on your own declarations page, set against the coverage floor every Georgia driver must carry, show how much room you have above the at-fault driver's limit.
When Minimum Limits Call for a Time-Limited Demand Under § 9-11-67.1
Once you know the limits, the next document in a serious case can be a written offer to settle for them, with a deadline. Georgia regulates those offers in motor-vehicle injury cases through O.C.G.A. § 9-11-67.1, which the legislature rewrote in 2024. One of the terms the rewritten statute allows is a requirement that the insurer state under oath whether all of the liability and casualty coverage it issued that may apply has been disclosed.[5]
The § 33-3-28 answer tells your lawyer what number to demand, and the demand can require the insurer to confirm, under oath and by a set date, that no other policy of its own sits behind that number. That sworn-coverage term carries its own deadline, at least 40 days after the insurer receives the demand, and the claimant can waive it.
A demand that misses one of the statute's terms can give the insurer room to argue it never received a valid offer, which is why a time-limited demand drafted to Georgia's 2024 statute is a lawyer's document. In serious Georgia car crash claims, every settlement figure is measured against the limits, so the limits request goes out first.