Car accident claims in California
Most car accident claims are not won by argument. They are won by four unglamorous things: who the police report blames, whether your treatment started early and stayed consistent, what the imaging shows, and how much insurance exists. Here is how each one works.
What actually decides your claim
Adjusters do not evaluate cases the way people expect. They are not weighing how unfair it was or how much pain you are in as a human matter. They are scoring four variables, and almost everything else is noise.
- Decided in week one
Liability — is fault clear, and is it clearly theirs?
A rear-end collision with a traffic collision report naming the other driver is a different claim from an unwitnessed lane-change dispute, even with identical injuries. California uses pure comparative fault, so being partly to blame does not end your claim — it reduces it by your percentage (Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804). A 20-point shift in that percentage is often worth more than every other argument in the file combined.
- Built over months
Causation — can this crash be blamed for this injury?
This is where most claims are actually lost. A gap between the crash and your first treatment, or a prior injury to the same body part, gives the insurer a story in which your pain came from somewhere else. The story does not have to be true. It only has to be arguable.
- Ongoing
Damages — what can be documented?
Bills, records, imaging, wage loss, and the specific daily things you can no longer do. The last category is the one claimants under-document and the one that moves numbers most.
- Known early, changes everything
Coverage — is there money to pay it?
A catastrophic injury caused by a driver carrying California's minimum policy may recover less than a moderate injury caused by a commercial vehicle with a seven-figure policy. It is the least fair part of the system and the most important thing to learn early.
How much insurance is actually out there
California raised its minimum liability limits on 1 January 2025, for the first time since 1967. A great many drivers still carry only the minimum, and plenty carry nothing at all.
$30,000 sounds like a lot until you see a single ambulance ride, an emergency department visit and an MRI. Which is why the first thing worth doing in any serious crash is finding every layer of coverage that might apply, not just the at-fault driver's policy.
- The at-fault driver's liability policy — the obvious one, and often the smallest.
- Your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage — pays when they have none or not enough. You paid for it. Using it is not a claim against yourself and it is not supposed to raise your rates. See UM and UIM claims.
- An employer's policy, if the at-fault driver was working — deliveries, sales calls, anything in the course of employment. Usually a far larger policy.
- A commercial or rideshare policy — see Uber and Lyft crashes.
- Your medical payments (MedPay) coverage — pays treatment regardless of fault, and does not reduce what you recover from the other driver.
- A dram shop or social host claim, in the narrow circumstances California allows. See drunk driving crashes.
The gap in treatment problem
If you take one thing from this page: the single most common self-inflicted wound in a car accident claim is waiting to get checked, then stopping and restarting treatment.
There are good reasons people wait. Adrenaline masks pain for a day or two. Soft-tissue and disc injuries often announce themselves on day three, not day one. People do not want the bill, or cannot take the time off, or assume it will settle down. All of that is human and none of it helps, because the insurer will read a three-week gap as evidence that nothing much happened.
If money is the obstacle, say so early. Treatment on a lien — where a provider is paid out of the eventual recovery rather than up front — is ordinary in California injury practice, and how liens work is worth understanding before you agree to one.
The recorded statement
Within a few days of the crash the other driver's insurer will call and ask for a recorded statement. They will be pleasant about it. It is not a neutral formality.
You are under no obligation to give a recorded statement to the other side's insurer. You generally do owe cooperation to your own insurer under your policy — which is a different thing with different consequences.
The questions that sound like small talk are rarely small talk. "How are you doing today?" produces "fine, thanks", which is quoted back a year later. "Had any trouble with your back before?" invites a casual "no" that a decade-old chiropractic record will contradict. There is a longer treatment of this in what to say, and not say, to an adjuster.
What a car accident case looks like end to end
Nobody tells you the shape of this, so here it is. Durations are typical, not promised — every case moves at the pace of the medicine and the court it lands in.
- Months 1–6+
Investigation and treatment
Collision report, photographs, witnesses, vehicle data, coverage search, and above all your medical treatment. Nothing is demanded while you are still actively treating, because nobody yet knows what the injury is.
- When your doctors say so
Maximum medical improvement
The point at which you have either recovered or plateaued. It is a medical milestone, not a legal one, and it is what the case waits for.
- 1–3 months
Demand and negotiation
A documented package goes to the insurer with the records, bills, wage loss and the legal basis for liability. Most claims resolve here.
- Filed before the deadline
Suit, if it has to be
Filing is not a declaration of war; it is often what gets a file taken seriously. Most filed cases still settle before trial.
- 12–24 months after filing
Discovery, mediation, trial
Depositions, records, experts, a defense medical examination, mediation. Trial is the exception, not the rule — but a case prepared as if it will be tried is a case that settles better.
The deadline
Those are the two that catch people. Our deadline checker will work yours out from the date and the kind of defendant, and show you the section it relied on.
Questions people ask
The insurance company already offered me money. Should I take it?
Not before you know what your injury is. An early offer arrives before anyone — including you — knows whether you need an MRI, injections or surgery, and a settlement is final. Once you sign, you cannot reopen it because the problem turned out to be a herniated disc. There is nothing wrong with an offer being made early; there is something wrong with accepting it early.
I was partly at fault. Is my claim over?
No. California uses pure comparative fault, so your recovery is reduced by your share of the blame rather than barred. Even someone found mostly at fault can recover the remaining percentage. Assume nothing about your own share of fault until someone has looked at the report — initial fault assessments in collision reports are regularly wrong and can be challenged with evidence.
The other driver had no insurance. Is there anything to do?
Often, yes. Your own uninsured motorist coverage exists for exactly this and does not depend on the other driver having anything. Check your declarations page, or send it to us and we will read it. There may also be a second at-fault party, an employer, or a vehicle owner who is responsible.
How long will my case take?
Claims resolved without filing suit commonly take somewhere between six months and about a year and a half, driven mainly by how long treatment lasts. A filed case typically adds another year or two. Anyone who gives you a confident date at the first phone call is guessing.
Do I have to go to court?
Most likely not. The large majority of injury claims settle, many without a lawsuit ever being filed. If yours is one that has to be filed and tried, you would know long in advance and would be prepared for it.
What does it cost to hire you?
Nothing up front. The fee is contingent — it comes out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery there is no fee. California requires the arrangement to be in a written agreement you sign (Bus. & Prof. Code § 6147). Our fees page explains how costs and liens come out of a settlement, which is the part most people are never told.
Related
Reviewed October 2026 by Simon Aziz Budhwani, Esq., the attorney responsible for this site. Legal statements here name the California code section they rely on, so you can check them rather than trust them. This is information about the law in general, not advice about your situation.
Find out where you stand.
Tell us what happened and we will tell you honestly whether you have a claim worth bringing, what it is likely to involve, and how long it tends to take. The review is free and there is no fee unless there is a recovery.