What Do You Need To Do After You Have Had An Accident?

When you are in a car accident, it can be tricky to know what to do and when to do it. You know that you need to talk to the other driver and talk to the police, but there is still more to do. 

Call Your Insurance Agent

After you call emergency services, your next call should be to your insurance agent. You might not think that this is the right time, but really, you want to get your insurance company working on your side as soon as possible, and the way to do that is to call your insurance agent right after the accident. There are going to be bills that are going to start to rack up right after the accident, starting with any towing fees and ending with medical fees. Alerting your insurance agent to the situation will let them open a case and alert a claims adjuster to come out and evaluate the damage. 

Document Everything

You should also start to document everything you can as soon as you can. That includes taking pictures of the damage to your car and to any property and pictures of the other person's car. Get their name and information, and get the name and information from anyone who happened to witness the accident as well. See if you can get them to write down what happened right then. You will get the best recollection right after the accident. In the following days, the witness's memories will start to add and subtract things. They won't do that on purpose, it just happens naturally. Getting the witness's statements at the time of the accident, if possible, will also give your attorney ammunition if you have to go to court. 

Documenting everything also includes getting the full names and numbers of all the people you talk to. Make notes about what the phone call was about. If you have their email information, you can send an email to the person recapping the conversation that you just had. Not only does this clarify your understanding, it also creates a record. A way to make that record even better is to make sure that you have turned on the delivery and read notifications on the email. That way you will know that the recipient got them. If you have to go to court to sue the other driver or the insurance company, your lawyer can use the emails that you sent and the notifications to prove that you had the conversations and that they were received. 

Doing these things can help you when it comes to filing your car accident claim and getting the money that you are owed for all your injuries and property damage.