Collecting compensation for your damages after a car accident begins with a claim to the insurance company of the driver who caused the accident. To file this claim, you will need their insurance information, and they will likely want yours. Georgia law requires that every driver have a minimum level of insurance, and they should have their insurance information ready to share should an accident occur.
Once you have this information, you’ll want to let your car accident attorney handle all communications for you. To help them get things started, make sure to collect insurance from the other drivers at the scene of the accident. Take a photo of their insurance card if they have a physical one, or otherwise record the information yourself.
Other Things to Remember
If you have been in a car accident, it is important to first:
- Check on the safety and security of the occupants of your vehicle and call emergency services if any harm is suspected
- Move your vehicle out of the roadway to avoid the potential for further harm
- Determine the safety and security of the other driver
- Call the police to come to the scene and request they write an accident report
Once you have checked on the safety and security of everyone involved and called the police to make a report of the accident for you, it is time to make sure you collect the insurance information of every driver involved – as there might be more than one. Especially with multi-car accidents, you might not know who will share liability for the crash, so getting the insurance information of everyone at the scene is critical.
What if You are Too Injured?
Some accidents cause severe injuries that require emergency medical care. If EMTs are assessing your condition and taking you straight to the hospital in an ambulance, the last thing you will be able to do is to obtain insurance information from others at the scene.
In this situation, the police who report to the scene should record this information and include it in their police report. While you are in the hospital or home beginning your recovery, you can have your car accident attorney reach out to the police department that filed the report to get the necessary information to start the insurance claim process.
Insurance Companies Are Generally Responsible for Compensating You
When you are injured in an accident caused by someone or something else and are entitled to compensation, you will generally be collecting from the insurance companies of the parties that caused the accident. Insurance companies employ full-time teams of claim analysts and attorneys to carefully scrutinize all claims that come in. The purpose of this is to deny whichever claims they can while paying as little as possible on those claims they do pay.
Once you have the insurance information of the parties involved in the accident, it is time to contact a car accident attorney. They will collect the evidence you need to draft a claim that will fully cover all your costs associated with the accident.
