If you’re watching this video, that means you maybe just had an accident or maybe you’re preparing to get in an accident. Either way, what I’m going to do is I’m going to help you walk through the stages of what happens when you have an accident. The steps immediately following an auto accident.
If you’ve had an auto accident, the first thing you need to do is render aid to anybody that’s injured. If you can physically help them yourselves, great; if not, call 911 and try to get them help as soon as possible if injuries occurred.
If there’s no injuries involved, then what you want to do is call the police if the accident took place on a public road, and it’s a substantial accident. If it’s a little bit more than a fender bender, you want to make sure the police are involved. If it’s a smaller accident or took place in a parking lot, those types of things, you can usually handle it on your own.
Either way, the step that you want to take next is to start gathering information and exchange information. The information exchange is very important after an auto accident in order to help the claim go smoothly. You want to get the information from the other party: their name, their address, their license plate number, their driver’s license number, and all of their contact information. You want to do that with everybody involved in the accident if there’s several parties involved.
The next thing you want to do is get witnesses, if there’s somebody that saw the accident but wasn’t involved. Whether they are in another vehicle or a bystander, you definitely want to get their information because they will be invaluable — especially if you were not at fault in this accident – to help your case and let everybody know what they saw.
The other thing that’s very important to remember is: do not admit fault at the scene. Even if you think you are at fault, do not admit fault. You want to talk with your insurance carrier first, and let them straighten it out. Admitting fault on the scene can make it very difficult down the road if perhaps you want to file a claim with another carrier or if something wasn’t quite the way it may have appeared and you’ve already admitted fault. So don’t admit that.
The next thing you want to do is contact your carrier as soon as possible, because they’ll help you walk through the claim and help you start to file the auto claim. If you’re interested in seeing how to file an insurance claim, watch our other video on “how to file an auto insurance claim.”
I’m Ron Philleo with Philleo Agency Insurance. Thanks for visiting philleo.com. Make sure to check out our other videos.
