What You Should Gather Immediately After an Auto Accident

Auto accidents occur in an instant and with no warning. People often become confused with all the noise, flashing emergency lights, and questions from police officers. Despite the chaos, accident victims must make the right choices to protect themselves. Here are the things you need to have available for a claim after an accident takes place.

Information from Drivers

Always swap insurance information with the driver responsible for the accident. The information makes it possible for your insurance company to contact their insurer about the claim. Record their license plate number and vehicle information or take a photo of the car if the driver refuses to give any information or drives away.

Photographs of Everything

Take as many pictures as possible as soon as it is safe after the accident. The photographs should include pictures of all the vehicles involved, of the road and any surrounding property damage. Include images of any visible physical injuries on yourself and your passengers. Get pictures of as many angles of the damage to your vehicle, including interior photographs.

Pictures enable recreations of the event if the other driver attempts to argue who caused the accident. The photographs of the vehicle damage can also help if an adjustor disagrees with the cost of the repairs. Interior photographs help to prove the legitimacy of injury reports.

Report from Police

The police report completed at the time of the accident helps to prove fault for the case. Utah is a no-fault state, but the insurer for the driver that caused the accident must still cover all property damage and medical bills for bodily injuries that exceed $3,000. The officer completing the report will give you the report number. Keep the number to retrieve a copy of the report.

You’ll need to wait a few days for a copy of the accident report becomes available. To print the report, go to the Utah.gov website and enter the report number, your name, your license number, and the date of the accident. You can also have the report mailed to you. A copy of an accident report will cost $10.

Examination at Hospital

Shock, adrenaline, and confusion can overwhelm accident victims. Emotional trauma can easily cause people to underestimate the extent of the injuries they receive. Sometimes, the victims of accidents do not feel any discomfort until the next day. The extent of a traumatic brain injury, for example, could take weeks or longer to become noticeable.

Immediate examinations after an accident enable doctors to check for internal bleeding, concussions, and other injuries the victim may not realize they have. The follow-up appointment usually recommended for a few days after an accident enables people to mention any new symptoms that began once their bodies relaxed from the excitement.

Accident victims need to take the concern of hidden injuries seriously, no matter how pain-free they feel at the accident scene. Insurance companies can claim the injuries you discovered days later happened after the accident and are not a legitimate part of the claim. A doctor’s report after the accident that mentions other potential concerns refutes the insurer.

Receipts from Everything

It is not only medical-related bills to include in a claim. Keep receipts or track any expenses related directly to the accident. For example, if you need to replace a smartphone or a pair of eyeglasses destroyed in the accident. You may need to hire a babysitter to watch children when you go to the doctor or physical therapy. Compensation is possible for all expenses.

No one wants to become an accident victim, but everyone should know how to respond if an accident occurs. If a problem arises, or you do not feel an insurance company has acted fairly, you also need to know who to contact. At Ipson Law Firm, PLLC, we can review your case and help you to decide what to do next. Contact us for a consultation.