Utah Car Accident Lawyer

What should you do after a car accident in Utah that wasn’t your fault? Get medical care right away — Utah’s Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage on your own policy pays your initial medical bills regardless of fault. Once your medical expenses pass Utah’s PIP threshold or you suffer a qualifying injury, you can pursue the at-fault driver’s insurance for your remaining medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Utah generally allows four years to file a car accident injury claim, but the evidence that wins claims — camera footage, witness memories, vehicle data — disappears within days or weeks. A free consultation with a Utah car accident lawyer costs nothing and protects everything.

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Why Injured Utahns Choose Porrazzo Rawlings

At Porrazzo Rawlings Accident & Injury Law, we built our practice around a simple idea: your case deserves an attorney’s full attention, not a spot in a case-processing line. When you call us, you speak with a real attorney — and your case is handled by the same attorney from day one until your check is in hand. No paralegal triage. No being passed down a chain of assistants. Michael stays personally involved in his clients’ cases, and every client can reach their attorney at any stage of the process.

The firm has been helping injured Utahns since 1990, and our results speak plainly: a 99% success rate, hundreds of millions of dollars recovered, and results that include a $1,000,000+ car accident settlement and a $1,000,000+ personal injury verdict. Nearly half of our new clients are referred by former clients — and we’re the firm other lawyers trust with their own family and friends.

Our name on the demand letter means more money in your pocket.

We Know the Insurance Playbook — Because We Helped Write It

Here’s what genuinely separates us from every billboard firm in Utah: several of our attorneys spent years on the other side. Bill Rawlings is a former insurance defense lawyer and adjuster for one of the largest insurance companies in the nation. Our team knows exactly how insurers evaluate Utah car accident claims — how they decide what your injuries are “worth,” which delay tactics they deploy, how they use recorded statements and blanket medical releases against you, and when a lowball offer is about to arrive.

When the adjuster on your claim realizes the attorney across the table used to hold their job, the conversation changes. That insider knowledge is built into every demand we write and every case we prepare.

How Do Car Accident Claims Work in Utah?

Utah uses a hybrid system that surprises most drivers. Understanding it is the first step to protecting your claim:

Step 1 — PIP pays first, no matter who caused the crash. Utah is a no-fault state for initial medical bills. Your own policy’s Personal Injury Protection coverage pays your first medical expenses — a minimum of $3,000 — under Utah Code § 31A-22-307, regardless of fault.

Step 2 — Crossing the threshold opens the liability claim. Once your medical expenses exceed the PIP threshold, or you suffer a qualifying injury under Utah Code § 31A-22-309, you can step outside the no-fault system and pursue the at-fault driver’s insurer for the full scope of your losses: remaining and future medical care, lost wages and earning capacity, and pain and suffering.

Step 3 — Fault is measured in percentages. Utah’s modified comparative negligence rule, Utah Code § 78B-5-818, lets you recover as long as you were less than 50% at fault — with your recovery reduced by your percentage. This is why insurers work so hard to shift partial blame onto injured drivers, and why we contest every unfair fault assignment.

Step 4 — The clock has two speeds. Utah’s statute of limitations for injury claims is generally four years under Utah Code § 78B-2-307. But the practical deadlines arrive much sooner: intersection camera footage is overwritten in days, vehicles carrying critical event data get scrapped, and witnesses move on. The strongest claims are built in the first weeks, not the fourth year.

How Common Are Car Accidents in Utah?

The official numbers from the Utah Department of Public Safety’s Highway Safety Office tell the story. In 2024, Utah recorded 59,437 crashes, 27,094 injuries, and 277 fatalities — a crash every 8.8 minutes and an injury every 19.4 minutes (Utah Crash Facts 2024, Utah DPS Highway Safety Office). Preliminary state data for 2025 counted 264 traffic deaths — the lowest since 2019, but with motorcyclist and teen fatalities rising sharply.

The leading driver factors in Utah crashes are exactly the negligent behaviors that create liability: following too closely (19%), failing to yield the right-of-way (18%), failing to keep in the proper lane (12%), and driving too fast for conditions (8%). Salt Lake, Utah, and Cache counties post the state’s highest crash rates per mile traveled — which is why our practice concentrates where the crashes are, from the I-15 corridor and the Point of the Mountain through the Wasatch Front’s arterial grid.

What Compensation Can You Recover After a Utah Car Accident?

Every case is different, and no attorney can promise a specific outcome — but a complete Utah claim accounts for every category of loss:

• Medical expenses — emergency care, surgery, imaging, rehabilitation, and the future treatment your injuries will require
• Lost income — missed work during recovery and diminished earning capacity when injuries change what you can do
• Pain and suffering — the physical and emotional toll, which insurers systematically undervalue in unrepresented claims
• Property damage — and unlike many injury firms, we pursue your vehicle damage claim alongside your injury claim, so nothing about the crash is left for you to handle alone

If the at-fault driver was uninsured or fled the scene, your own uninsured motorist coverage may respond; if your injuries exceed their policy limits, underinsured motorist coverage can add a layer. Identifying every available policy before discussing numbers is one of the most valuable things we do.

What Does It Cost to Hire Us? Nothing Unless We Win.

We operate on a zero-fee guarantee: you pay nothing unless we win or settle your case. We also advance all necessary case costs — filing fees, records, medical evaluations — so you have no out-of-pocket expenses while your case proceeds. If you’re uninsured or between jobs, we can help arrange medical care on a lien so treatment never waits on money. Consultations are free, we’re available 24/7, and we come to you: home, hospital, or anywhere in Utah.

We Handle Every Kind of Utah Car Accident

Rear-end collisions and whiplash claims · intersection and failure-to-yield crashes · multi-vehicle pileups · crashes with commercial trucks and delivery vehicles · motorcycle collisions · rideshare (Uber/Lyft) accidents · hit-and-run and uninsured-driver claims · drunk and distracted driving victims · winter and canyon-road crashes. Wherever you were hurt — Salt Lake City, Provo, Ogden, Sandy, Draper, or anywhere across the Wasatch Front — our attorneys serve all of Utah, with Spanish-language service available (Hablamos Español).

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Utah a no-fault state for car accidents?

Partially. Utah’s no-fault system applies only to initial medical bills: your own PIP coverage pays first (minimum $3,000) regardless of fault. Once your medical expenses pass the threshold or you suffer a qualifying injury, Utah becomes an at-fault state for your claim, and you can pursue the negligent driver’s insurer for your full losses.

How long do I have to file a car accident claim in Utah?

Generally four years from the date of the crash for injury claims under Utah Code § 78B-2-307. Claims involving government vehicles or road conditions carry much shorter notice deadlines, and the evidence that proves fault disappears far faster than any legal deadline — so earlier is always stronger.

What if the insurance company says I was partly at fault?

You can still recover. Utah’s comparative negligence rule allows recovery as long as you were less than 50% at fault, reduced by your percentage. Insurers routinely inflate fault percentages to cut payouts; those assignments can be contested with crash reports, vehicle data, and reconstruction.

Will my case have to go to trial?

Most likely not — roughly 98% of our cases settle without going to court. But insurers pay more to firms they know will actually try a case, and we prepare every claim as if it’s headed to a courtroom. If trial is what your case requires, that’s what it gets.

Do you handle the damage to my car too?

Yes. We pursue the property damage claim alongside your injury claim — vehicle repair or total-loss value, rental coverage, and diminished value where it applies — so the insurance company doesn’t get to nickel-and-dime you on the car while we handle the injury.

What makes Porrazzo Rawlings different from the big TV firms?

Structure. At high-volume firms your file moves through case managers and assistants; here, your case is handled by an attorney personally — the same attorney from your first call until your check is in hand. Combine that with 100+ years of combined experience and attorneys who used to work for the insurance industry, and you get a firm built to maximize claims, not process them.

Talk to a Utah Car Accident Attorney Today — Free

The insurance company started working on its version of your crash the day it happened. Start yours today. Call (801) 553-0505 for a free consultation — available 24/7, no fees unless we win, and we’ll come to you anywhere in Utah.