Reporting the Accident to the Insurance Company

After you have exchanged information with the other party, and/or obtained the police report case number, it’s time to go to a safe and quiet place, take 20 minutes out of you day, an report the accident to the insurance company. I do not recommend calling in the claim from the scene of the accident, unless you need a tow truck if your vehicle is not safe to drive. But do you report it to your insurance company or the other insurance company?

I suggest reporting the accident to both insurance companies (assuming there are only two parties involved in this accident), starting with your insurance company. In several auto insurance policies, there is a requirement that you to report the accident to the company immediately and in some cases, there is actually a time limit you have to follow.  After you report the claim to your insurance company, if the other party is the one that caused the accident, your insurance company representative should contact the other party’s insurance company and report it. However, I would just call the other insurance company myself and report it.

If you don’t know what number to call to report the accident, you can do research on that company’s internet site and find the phone number to contact that company in order to report the claim. When a person comes on the line, they will usually follow a script of questions asking you what happened in the accident, names and contact information on all parties involved, witness information, police report information, whether or not the vehicles involved were towed and if there were any injuries sustained by anyone. By opening up a claim on the other party’s policy, you are starting the process that makes the other insurance company initiate contact with the person they insure. Your insurance company will do their investigation and the other party’s insurance company will do their own independent investigation in order to determine who is liable for the accident.

The person that takes the claim may pass it off to someone or keep the claim to handle for you depending on the complexity of the claim and that company’s procedures. He or she should give you the claim number that has been assigned, the assigned adjuster (if it is not that person that took the claim report from you,) and the next steps as well as the timeframe involved for the claim. If they do not give you this information, remember to ask for it. That person may tell you that you have a duty to mitigate your damages, which means to take reasonable steps to minimize the costs of the claim if possible. What I mean by this is if your vehicle is not safe to drive, you probably do not want to drive it if it will cause further damage. If that happens, the insurance company may deny that if the company’s claims adjuster deems it unrelated to the car accident. If you are already incurring costs, it is a good idea to save your receipts because you may be able to present them to the adjuster and ask to be reimbursed. That adjuster will tell you if you will be reimbursed for those expenses or not based on his review of the claim.

*I am not an attorney. The information on this site is not legal advice and should not be taken as such by the reader. What I post on here are my opinions based on my experience as an auto claims adjuster.

mrhelper@bestcarwreckinfo.com
bestcarwreckinfo.com

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