Georgia writes the rules for an injury claim into its statutes, and a handful of them decide more than most people realize: how long you have to act, how much a claim is worth, and who gets paid out of any recovery. This is a plain-English index of the code sections that matter most after an injury in Georgia. Each entry links to the statute itself on Justia so you can read the text, and each explains what the section actually does. None of this is legal advice. It is a map of where the rules live.
Which Georgia statutes put a deadline on an injury claim?
Four statutes put a clock on the days after a crash, and they run from the injury itself, not from the day you decide to act. Three of them are true claim-killers: miss the ante-litem notice or the filing deadline and an otherwise valid claim can be barred for good, no matter how treatment or negotiation is going. The fourth is a duty to report the crash, which carries its own penalties but does not by itself end a civil claim. The shortest is that reporting duty, which applies immediately; the longest is the two-year limit on filing suit, which we also cover in our answer on the Georgia car-accident statute of limitations. A separate twelve-month deadline applies to claims against a county under O.C.G.A. 36-11-1, which sits alongside the ones below and is explained in our claim timeline by phase.
| Deadline | Code section | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
| Immediately, on the day of the crash | O.C.G.A. 40-6-273 | Report a crash involving injury, death, or apparent property damage of $500 or more to the local police or the county sheriff. This is a reporting duty with its own penalties; missing it does not by itself bar a civil claim. |
| Within 6 months | O.C.G.A. 36-33-5 | Give a city written ante-litem notice before suing it, stating the time, place, extent of the injury, the negligence claimed, and the specific amount demanded. |
| Within 12 months | O.C.G.A. 50-21-26 | Give the State written notice under the Georgia Tort Claims Act, filed with the Department of Administrative Services, before suing a state agency. |
| Within 2 years | O.C.G.A. 9-3-33 | File a personal-injury lawsuit. The clock generally runs two years from the date of injury, and after it the claim is barred. |
Which statutes decide what an injury claim is worth and who gets paid?
Six more statutes do not set a filing deadline, but they shape the size of a claim and how any recovery is divided. They cover fault, insurance, settlement demands, and the parties who can be reimbursed out of what you recover.
| Code section | What it does for your claim |
|---|---|
| O.C.G.A. 51-12-33 | Apportionment. A jury reduces your damages by your own share of fault and assigns the rest among everyone found at fault. If you are 50 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing. |
| O.C.G.A. 51-11-7 | Avoidable consequences. You cannot recover for harm you could have avoided through ordinary care, which is one reason following medical advice matters to a claim. |
| O.C.G.A. 33-7-11 | Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Every Georgia auto policy must include it unless you reject it in writing, and it is what pays when the at-fault driver has no insurance or too little. |
| O.C.G.A. 9-11-67.1 | Pre-suit settlement demands in motor-vehicle cases. It sets the required terms and a minimum acceptance window for a time-limited demand to an insurer. The General Assembly rewrote this section in 2024. |
| O.C.G.A. 33-24-56.1 | Reimbursement to health plans. Many health plans can be repaid from your recovery only after you have been fully compensated, with the amount reduced for your share of attorney fees and costs. Self-funded plans governed by federal ERISA law can fall outside this rule. |
| O.C.G.A. 44-14-470 | Hospital and provider liens. A hospital or certain providers can place a lien on your recovery for the reasonable charges of the care they gave. |
How does fault reduce a Georgia injury recovery?
Under O.C.G.A. 51-12-33, a Georgia jury assigns a percentage of fault to everyone involved, including people who are not parties to the lawsuit, and reduces the damages by the injured person's own share. A plaintiff who is 50 percent or more at fault recovers nothing, and each defendant is responsible only for its own percentage rather than the whole award. This is Georgia's modified comparative-fault rule, and we walk through how it plays out in comparative negligence in Georgia. The version of this rule that lets a single defendant assign fault to non-parties was settled by a 2022 amendment, not by the 2025 tort-reform law described below.
Who can take money out of a Georgia injury settlement?
Hospitals, health plans, and certain providers can claim part of a recovery, but Georgia law limits them. A hospital or provider can file a lien for the reasonable charges of care under O.C.G.A. 44-14-470, covered in hospital liens in Georgia. Many health plans can be reimbursed under O.C.G.A. 33-24-56.1 only after the injured person has been fully compensated, with the share reduced for attorney fees and costs. Self-funded plans governed by federal ERISA law can fall outside that rule, which is one reason the source of the coverage matters. How all of those claims are settled at the end of a case is laid out in how a Georgia injury settlement gets paid.
What pays when the at-fault driver has no insurance?
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, required by O.C.G.A. 33-7-11 unless you reject it in writing, is what pays when the at-fault driver has no coverage or not enough. It is one of the most useful protections a Georgia driver carries and one of the easiest to waive by accident at renewal. We cover how it works, and how it is often rejected without the driver realizing, in uninsured motorist coverage in Georgia.
What did Georgia's 2025 tort reform change?
Georgia enacted a major tort-reform law in 2025, Senate Bill 68, signed on April 21, 2025. It did not change any of the deadlines above. What it changed is how injury cases are tried and valued. You can read the enrolled text of Senate Bill 68 in full.
What Senate Bill 68 changed
- It created a new framework for negligent-security claims, O.C.G.A. 51-3-50 through 51-3-57, with a stricter test for when a property owner can be held liable for a crime committed on the property.
- It made evidence that an occupant was not wearing a seat belt admissible in a civil case, reversing the prior rule that kept that evidence out.
- It limited recoverable medical damages to the reasonable value of medically necessary care, and changed what a jury may be shown about amounts billed versus amounts actually accepted.
- It allowed either party to split an injury trial into separate phases, one for fault and one for damages.
Two points are easy to get wrong. The rule that lets a single defendant assign fault to non-parties under O.C.G.A. 51-12-33 came from a 2022 amendment, not from the 2025 law. And the current rules for pre-suit settlement demands under O.C.G.A. 9-11-67.1 came from a 2024 amendment. Senate Bill 68 left both of those sections alone.
The deadlines decide whether you have a claim at all. The valuation rules decide what it is worth. Both are written down, and both are easy to find.
How this list was put together
Every section here was selected on one test: it either sets a deadline on a typical Georgia injury claim or it changes how such a claim is valued or paid. Sections that apply only to narrow situations, and pure courtroom-procedure rules, were left out. Each O.C.G.A. section was read on Justia's 2025 Georgia Code on October 15, 2026, and the 2025 tort-reform changes were checked against the enrolled text of Senate Bill 68. Deadlines have exceptions, and the exceptions are where many cases turn, so treat the dates here as the general rule and confirm your own against the statute and the facts of your situation. If you want to talk a deadline through, our personal-injury practice page explains how the office works.