What to do after a car accident in Tennessee

A crash on I-40 outside Nashville, a two-lane through the Smokies, or a fender-bender in a Memphis parking lot all leave you with the same problem: fast decisions made under Tennessee rules that are stricter than most drivers expect. The general steps at the scene are the same everywhere. This page is about what is specifically true in Tennessee, the exact deadlines, fault rules, and dollar figures that decide how a claim ends.

Report the crash and get the official report

Tennessee crashes are usually investigated by the Tennessee Highway Patrol or a local police or sheriff's department, and those reports feed into the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security system. You can buy your report online for $10 through the state's PurchaseTNCrash portal, and it is normally posted within about seven business days of the crash.¹ In-person or mailed copies from a THP district office cost $4.¹ The report ties the whole file together, giving you the case number, the investigating agency, and the other driver's insurer, so pull it early. We cover the retrieval steps on our Tennessee crash report page; this guide sticks to the law.

Tennessee is an at-fault state, and there is no PIP

Tennessee is a tort, at-fault state, not a no-fault state. The driver who caused the crash, and that driver's liability insurer, pays for the harm, and the state backs this up with its Financial Responsibility Law.² There is no personal injury protection (PIP) requirement here and no medical-payments mandate. Med-Pay is an optional add-on you either bought or you didn't. In practice that means your own health insurance and any Med-Pay you carry usually front your treatment while the at-fault claim gets worked out.

The deadline that ends cases: one year

This is the single most important number in Tennessee injury law. You have one year from the date of the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit.³ Tennessee's one-year limit is among the shortest in the country; most states allow two or three years. Miss it and the claim is gone, no matter how badly you were hurt or how plainly the other driver was at fault. The same one-year window applies to a wrongful-death claim.³

There are a couple of wrinkles. If the at-fault driver is criminally prosecuted over the crash, a DUI charge for example, the injury deadline can stretch to two years.³ And the clock on vehicle damage and other property claims is longer, three years from the accident.⁴ Do not let that three-year property window fool you into thinking you have time on the injury side. You don't.

How Tennessee splits the blame

Tennessee uses modified comparative fault with a 50% bar, the rule the state Supreme Court adopted in McIntyre v. Balentine.⁵ Your recovery is reduced by your share of the fault, and if you are found 50% or more at fault, you recover nothing at all. A $100,000 award drops to $75,000 if you were 25% responsible, and vanishes entirely once you hit the 50% line. Because the insurer's whole strategy is often to nudge your percentage up toward that line, what you say at the scene and to adjusters carries more weight here than it would in a pure-comparative state.

Minimum insurance, and why it often falls short

Tennessee's minimum liability limits are 25/50/25: $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage.⁶ The property-damage floor is the newest piece. It rose from $15,000 to $25,000 for policies issued or renewed after December 31, 2022.⁶ A totaled late-model vehicle can pass $25,000 on its own, and a serious injury can pass $25,000 in a hurry, which is where uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage comes in.

Insurers in Tennessee have to offer you UM/UIM coverage equal to your bodily-injury limits, but you are allowed to reject it, or pick lower limits, in writing.⁷ Check your own declarations page. If you signed that coverage away, an at-fault driver carrying only the state minimum, or no insurance at all, can leave you covering the gap out of pocket.

What a Tennessee claim can be worth

Economic damages, meaning medical bills, lost income, and future care, are not capped. Noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life, are capped at $750,000, rising to $1,000,000 for a catastrophic injury.⁸ Tennessee defines "catastrophic" narrowly: paraplegia or quadriplegia from a spinal-cord injury, amputation of two hands or two feet or one of each, third-degree burns covering at least 40% of the body or the face, or the wrongful death of a parent who leaves minor children.⁸ The Tennessee Supreme Court held the cap constitutional in McClay v. Airport Management Services in 2020.⁹

Two exceptions are worth knowing. The noneconomic cap does not apply at all if the at-fault driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs and their judgment was substantially impaired.⁸ Separately, punitive damages, which punish reckless or intentional conduct rather than compensate you, are capped at the greater of $500,000 or twice the compensatory award and require clear and convincing proof.¹⁰

Impaired and distracted drivers

Since July 1, 2019, Tennessee has banned holding a phone or reading and sending texts behind the wheel. It is a primary offense, meaning an officer can pull you over for that alone, and it is a Class C misdemeanor with a $50 fine for a first or second violation and steeper fines for repeat offenses or violations in a work or school zone.¹¹ A citation under this statute is strong evidence of fault in a later claim.

Drunk-driving crashes trigger the cap exception above, but suing the bar or restaurant that served the driver is hard in Tennessee. Under the state's Dram Shop Act, a seller is liable to an injured third party only if a jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that it served a visibly intoxicated person or a minor and that the sale was a direct cause of the crash.¹²

Vehicle damage and diminished value

Even after a clean repair, a car that now carries a crash on its history is worth less at trade-in or resale. Tennessee lets you pursue that lost value as a property claim, on the three-year property timeline.⁴ We walk through how to document and value it on our Tennessee diminished value page.

When to bring in a lawyer

With a one-year fuse on injury claims and a fault rule that can zero out your recovery, the margin for error in Tennessee is thin. If anyone was hurt, if fault is disputed, or if an insurer is already pushing you toward a quick settlement, talk to a Tennessee attorney well before that year runs out. You can start with our legal directory.

This article is general information about Tennessee law, not legal advice; consult a licensed Tennessee attorney about your specific situation.

Sources

Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security, "PurchaseTNCrash Website Available For Crash Reports." https://www.tn.gov/safety/news/2019/8/19/purchase-tn-crash-website-available-for-crash-reports.html
Tennessee Department of Revenue, "Drive Insured Tennessee: Why You Should Have Insurance" (Financial Responsibility Law). https://www.tn.gov/revenue/title-and-registration/drive-insured-tennessee/why-you-should-have-insurance.html
Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104 (personal tort actions; one-year limitation). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-3/part-1/section-28-3-104/
Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-105 (property tort actions; three-year limitation). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-28/chapter-3/part-1/section-28-3-105/
McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn. 1992). https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/supreme-court/1992/833-s-w-2d-52-2.html
Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-12-102 (financial responsibility limits), as amended by 2022 Tenn. Pub. Ch. 860. https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-12/part-1/section-55-12-102/
Tenn. Code Ann. § 56-7-1201 (uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-56/chapter-7/part-12/section-56-7-1201/
Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-39-102 (civil damage awards: noneconomic cap, catastrophic-injury definition, and impaired-driver exception). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-29/chapter-39/section-29-39-102/
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts, press release on McClay v. Airport Management Services, LLC (2020). https://www.tncourts.gov/press/2021/06/02/tennessee-supreme-court-holds-statutory-cap-noneconomic-damages-limits-recovery
Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-39-104 (punitive damages cap). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-29/chapter-39/section-29-39-104/
Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-199 (prohibited use of wireless devices while driving), effective July 1, 2019. https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-55/chapter-8/part-1/section-55-8-199/
Tenn. Code Ann. § 57-10-102 (Dram Shop Act). https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-57/chapter-10/section-57-10-102/