What To Do After An Auto Accident

If you are involved in an auto-accident, there are some things you need to do to protect your rights:

1. Call the police immediately after the accident. This is the first step to preserving the fact an accident happened. Typically, the investigating officer is going to generate an official traffic accident report to be held on file with the appropriate police/public safety department. Even if the investigating officer decides that a full report is not necessary, be sure to ask if you can have all parties fill out a civil information exchange. And make sure that the other parties fill their information exchanges completely and have them include their insurance company and policy number.

2. If you are injured, make sure you inform the investigating officer of your injuries. Also be sure to request emergency medical help if you feel that is necessary.

3. Tell the investigating officer every thing about how the accident happened as best as you can recall. The sooner you get this information to the investigating officer and the sooner it gets into the report, the more reliable it is. Also ask the officer if you can fill out an Accident Description Form and take a moment to think about what happened in detail before you write it down.

4. Be sure to have the investigating officer take down witness information and include that in the report. Don't be surprised if there are no witnesses, however. Often, people will not stop after an accident has occurred unless it is an unusually bad accident or the witnesses find that one driver's behavior was outrageous enough to stop and talk with an officer.

5. Call an attorney to talk about your case. Aside from your own insurance company, do not talk with other insurance companies. Other insurance companies are actively looking to settle cases before even you know the extent of your damages. They will obtain recorded statements and use those statements to hurt your case later on. An attorney, however, will begin to immediately protect the information in the case, while investigating the facts of what happened.

Be advised that even a fairly simple auto accident can have profound effects on the people involved in them. An attorney can help you with many aspects of your case, such as, finding a medical provider, getting you in touch with an agency that will help with your property damage, as well as, other issues that you will encounter. Moreover, an attorney is going to know what your responsibilities are with respect to employer funded health insurance plans and state/federal funded health care plans.