To file an insurance claim against another driver, you open a third-party claim with that driver’s liability insurer, prove they caused the crash, and submit documentation of your losses before the state’s filing deadline runs out. Because every state sets its own minimum liability requirements — property damage coverage starts as low as $5,000 in some states, and bodily injury minimums vary widely — the first practical question is whether the at-fault driver actually has enough coverage to pay what you’re owed.1Insurance Information Institute. Automobile Financial Responsibility Laws By State The rest is a sequence: verify, document, file, negotiate, and only then sign anything.
Verify the Other Driver’s Coverage First
Call the insurance company listed on the other driver’s card. Give the representative the policy number and ask two things: was the policy active on the date of the accident, and what are the liability limits. Lapsed policies are more common than most drivers expect, and finding out early saves you from filing a claim that goes nowhere.
Liability limits cap what the insurer will pay you no matter how large your losses are. A driver carrying only their state’s minimum property damage coverage may not have enough to cover a totaled vehicle, and minimum bodily injury limits often fall far short of a serious medical bill.1Insurance Information Institute. Automobile Financial Responsibility Laws By State If the limits won’t cover your damages, you’ll need to look at your own underinsured motorist coverage or pursue the driver personally for the difference.
Didn’t get insurance information at the scene? The police report almost always contains it. The federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act restricts who can access motor vehicle records, but insurance claims are a permitted use, so you or your insurer can generally obtain what’s needed through the report or through a formal records request.
Check Whether Your State Lets You File This Claim
The rules that govern your claim depend on your state, and this is worth confirming before you invest hours in paperwork.
No-Fault States
About a dozen states, including Florida, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Kansas, operate under no-fault systems. In those states, your own personal injury protection coverage pays your medical bills and lost wages regardless of who caused the crash. You can only step outside that system and file a bodily injury claim against the other driver if your injuries clear a severity threshold set by state law, defined either by medical expense dollars or by injury type such as fractures or permanent disfigurement. Property damage claims are generally not restricted the same way, so you can still pursue the other driver’s insurer for vehicle repairs.
At-Fault States
Most states let you file directly against the at-fault driver’s insurer. The complication is that fault is rarely all-or-nothing. Most at-fault states use comparative negligence, reducing your recovery by your share of fault. A handful — Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia — still follow contributory negligence, under which any fault on your part, even one percent, bars you from recovering anything. If you’re in one of those jurisdictions, the other insurer has a strong incentive to find a sliver of fault on your side, so your documentation has to be airtight.
Filing Deadlines
Every state sets a statute of limitations for personal injury lawsuits, ranging from one year to six depending on the state and claim type. That deadline matters for insurance negotiations too, because once it passes, the insurer knows you’ve lost the ability to sue. Separately, your own policy likely requires you to report an accident within days, and the at-fault driver’s insurer will expect to hear from you reasonably soon after the crash.
Build the Evidence File
Adjusters decide liability and damages from documentation, not your account. The strongest claims arrive with everything the adjuster needs to say yes without asking for more.
Photos, Video, and Witnesses
Photograph vehicle damage from multiple angles, skid marks, traffic signals, road conditions, and debris. Photograph your injuries right away and again as they heal or worsen. If you have a dashcam, preserve the footage. Clear, timestamped video showing the other driver’s actions can end a liability dispute before it begins, though it cuts both ways: if the footage shows you speeding or distracted, the insurer will use it.
Collect names and phone numbers from anyone who saw the crash and ask each witness to write down what they observed while their memory is fresh. Witnesses become harder to reach and less reliable as weeks pass.
The Police Report
Request a copy as soon as it’s available, usually within a few days to a couple of weeks. Read it. If the officer got the street wrong, misidentified a signal, or attributed a statement to you that you didn’t make, contact the department to request a correction or file a supplemental statement. Adjusters treat police reports as near-gospel, so mistakes in the report become your problem if you don’t catch them early.
Medical Records
See a doctor promptly after the accident, even if you feel fine. Soft tissue injuries and concussions often take hours or days to produce obvious symptoms, and a gap between the crash and your first medical visit gives the adjuster room to argue your injuries weren’t caused by it. Keep every receipt, every explanation of benefits, and every bill. Those records are the backbone of an injury claim.
Open the Claim With the Other Driver’s Insurer
Call the at-fault driver’s insurance company and tell them you’re opening a third-party claim. You’ll give them the accident date and location, the other driver’s policy number, and a short summary of the damages you’re claiming. The insurer will assign an adjuster and issue a claim number. Most states require insurers to acknowledge a new claim within roughly 10 to 15 business days.
Once the claim is open, submit your documentation: police report, photographs, medical records and bills, repair estimates, witness statements. Organize it. A well-assembled packet signals that you’re prepared to push back on a lowball offer. Send copies, keep originals, and log every document and every phone call with the adjuster, including dates and what was discussed.
Timing matters on the injury side. If you’re still receiving treatment, don’t rush to finalize the medical portion of your claim. Filing before you’ve reached maximum medical improvement can cost you money because you won’t know the full scope of your damages. Submit vehicle repair estimates and property documentation early, but hold the injury piece until treatment ends or your doctor can give a clear prognosis.
Handle the Adjuster Carefully
The adjuster works for the other driver’s insurance company. Their job is to resolve the claim for as little as the evidence will support. Approach every conversation knowing that their interests and yours don’t align.
Stick to facts. Don’t speculate about what the other driver was doing, don’t guess at your speed, and don’t minimize your symptoms to be polite. Never apologize or say anything that could be reframed as accepting fault. Adjusters comb police reports, statements, and casual remarks for anything that sounds like an admission, and once it’s in the file, it’s difficult to undo.
The adjuster will likely ask for a recorded statement. You are not obligated to give one to the other driver’s insurer. You can decline, or offer a written statement instead. Recorded statements create a transcript the insurer can mine later for anything that contradicts your claim, and you can’t take it back. If you agree to one, keep answers short, factual, and limited to what you actually remember. Many attorneys advise against recorded statements to the opposing insurer entirely.
Your own insurer is different. Most auto policies contain a cooperation clause requiring you to help investigate your claim, which generally means answering questions and providing documents.
Evaluate the Offer Before You Sign Anything
The first offer is almost always lower than what the claim is worth. That isn’t cynicism, it’s the shape of the process: the adjuster starts low, expects a counter, and both sides move toward a number they can accept. Compare any offer to your actual documented losses before responding.
Total your economic damages: medical bills past and reasonably estimated future, lost wages, vehicle repair or replacement, rental car, and any other out-of-pocket costs tied to the accident. Then account for non-economic damages such as pain and reduced quality of life. There is no universal formula for non-economic damages despite what you may read about multipliers. Value depends on injury severity, evidence strength, and available policy limits.
Settle Property Damage Separately
You can settle the property damage portion of your claim separately from the injury portion, and often you should. Vehicle repairs are quick to value; injury claims can take months. If you settle property damage on its own, make sure the release document explicitly says “property damage only” and confirms your injury claim remains open.
Ask About Diminished Value
A repaired vehicle with accident history on its Carfax or AutoCheck report is worth less than an identical vehicle that was never damaged. That gap is diminished value, and in every state except Michigan you can claim it against the at-fault driver’s insurer. It’s separate from the repair claim, and the insurer will not add it automatically. You’ll need your vehicle’s pre-accident market value, a post-repair appraisal from a qualified appraiser, and documentation of the gap. Diminished value claims are worth pursuing on newer, lower-mileage vehicles where the dollar gap justifies the effort; on an older car with high mileage, the amount may be negligible.
Read the Release Carefully
Before paying, the insurer will ask you to sign a release of all claims. This document is final. Once signed, you cannot come back for more, even if new injuries surface or your condition worsens. You also become responsible for paying any outstanding medical liens out of the proceeds, and some releases include an indemnity clause that makes you responsible for future costs connected to the accident, such as unpaid provider bills or subrogation claims.
If you are still in active treatment, do not sign. Wait until you’ve either recovered or your doctor can reliably estimate future costs. Signing too early is the single most expensive and irreversible mistake in this process.
If the Claim Is Denied
Insurers deny claims for disputed liability, insufficient evidence, policy exclusions, or coverage that lapsed before the accident. The denial letter should state the specific reason. Read it before deciding your next move.
If the problem is missing evidence, ask the adjuster exactly what’s needed and submit it. If the insurer disputes fault, an independent accident reconstruction report or additional witness statements can shift the picture. If the denial cites a policy exclusion, request the exact language and read it. Adjusters sometimes apply exclusions too broadly, and quoting the policy back at them can reverse a denial.
When direct negotiation stalls, file a formal appeal with the insurer in writing, referencing the claim number and denial reason and attaching any new evidence. Beyond the insurer’s internal process, every state has a department of insurance that investigates consumer complaints. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners links to each state’s consumer portal.2NAIC. How to File a Complaint and Research Complaints Against Insurance Carriers State regulators can investigate whether an insurer violated unfair claims settlement practices laws, which prohibit conduct such as failing to acknowledge communications promptly, refusing to pay claims without a reasonable investigation, and offering substantially less than the evidence supports.3NAIC. Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act Model Law
A regulatory complaint won’t negotiate your settlement for you, but it puts the insurer’s conduct on the record. If the dollar amount justifies it, hiring an attorney who handles insurance claims changes the dynamic: attorneys can calculate the full value of a claim, negotiate with a credible threat of litigation, and take the case to arbitration or court. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, taking a percentage of the recovery rather than charging upfront.
When the Other Driver Has No Insurance or Not Enough
If the at-fault driver is uninsured, or their limits won’t cover what you’re owed, your own policy becomes the backstop. Uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage pays your medical costs and lost wages when the at-fault driver has no coverage. Underinsured motorist bodily injury coverage covers the gap when their limits fall short. Some states also offer uninsured and underinsured motorist property damage coverage. Many states require insurers to include uninsured motorist coverage unless you rejected it in writing.
A UM or UIM claim is a first-party claim against your own insurer, but you still need to prove the other driver caused the crash and that your damages exceed whatever coverage they had. Submit the same evidence you’d use in a third-party claim: police report, medical records, repair estimates, and proof of the coverage gap. Hit-and-run crashes where the other driver is never identified typically qualify for uninsured motorist coverage, though some states exclude property damage from hit-and-run UM claims.
You can also file with your own collision coverage right away, which pays for repairs minus your deductible while your insurer pursues the at-fault driver’s insurer through subrogation. If subrogation succeeds, you usually get your deductible back. That’s often the fastest way to get your car repaired when the other insurer is slow to accept liability.