You may have many questions after getting seriously hurt in a collision in California. If you’ve found yourself searching, “How long after a car accident can you claim injury?” you are not alone. While you’ll need a case review from a car accident lawyer to know the specific timeline for your case, there are general guidelines that can give you an idea of what to expect.
The better you understand the timeline of the legal process, the more likely you are to get fair compensation for your injuries. Here’s everything you need to know to protect your right to file a lawsuit or insurance claim after you suffer a crash in Fresno, California.
Common Questions From Car Accident Victims
Serious injuries can make it difficult to take legal action or file an insurance claim. This means that precious time can go by while you are recovering from your injuries. Injury victims concerned about this timeline often ask these questions:
How Long After an Accident Do You Have to File a Claim?
The amount of time you have after a car or truck accident to file a claim with your insurance company depends on the insurer’s policies. Typically, though, the deadline is in weeks or months. Even if your insurer gives you years to act, delaying is rarely wise.
How Long Do You Have to Report a Car Accident to Your Insurance Company?
While reporting a car accident to your insurance company is the first step in filing an insurance claim, it isn’t the only step. You have to formally file a claim as well. Generally, the deadlines for reporting an accident and for filing a claim are different.
Your insurance company likely has a policy requiring you to report the accident as soon as possible. There may be exceptions if your injuries prevent you from reporting the accident, but your policy may require you to report the accident within days or weeks in most situations.
How Long Does an Insurance Company Have to Investigate a Claim?
Insurance companies benefit more from delaying insurance claims than claimants do. Often, the longer it takes for you to receive a settlement, the more likely you are to drop your claim or accept less compensation than you need.
California insurance regulations attempt to protect claimants from unnecessary delays by mandating a strict timeline for insurance companies. While there is some leeway, especially when claims are very complicated, insurance companies usually have only a little over a month to complete an investigation.
According to the mandated timeline, your insurance company must acknowledge your claim and send you instructions for proceeding within 15 days of you filing the claim. Once you have filled out the paperwork that documents your claim, the insurance company has 40 days to make a decision.
During those 40 days, the insurance company needs to investigate the accident and all the evidence you provided to support your claim. The company can use all 40 of those days, but it also has to make a justifiable decision during that time.
How Long Does It Take for Insurance to Payout Total Loss?
The same insurance regulations also put a cap on how long an insurance company can take to pay compensation after approving a settlement. Once you accept a settlement offer, the insurance company must typically make the final payment within 30 days.
Each of these deadlines goes into effect after the previous one has passed. This means that if you are represented by an experienced law firm that is helping you complete your required steps promptly, the insurance company should only be able to take 85 days at most to pay you full compensation for your claim.
How Long Does an Insurance Claim Take on Average?
The average length of time an insurance claim takes depends on several factors. The simpler your claim, the less time the insurance company may need to spend on it. Similarly, claims that don’t involve a large settlement are usually resolved relatively quickly. It may not be worth the effort for an insurance company to spend resources fighting a relatively low claim.
However, when your claim involves significant dollar values, the insurance company may attempt to delay it as long as it legally can. It can even potentially delay past the 85-day limit by claiming that you have improperly completed paperwork or other responsibilities.
One common way to speed up the time it takes to get a fair settlement is by hiring an experienced lawyer. Skilled attorneys are familiar with the insurance process and will help you promptly and accurately complete all required steps. They can also keep an eye out for unnecessary delays and take legal action if needed.
How Long Does a Car Accident Settlement Take in a Wrongful Death Claim?
These deadlines generally remain the same when a car accident involves a fatality. The insurance company still has 15 days to respond to your claim, 40 days to investigate, and 30 days to pay compensation. However, for other reasons, wrongful death claims often take longer than injury claims.
Wrongful death claims are typically more complicated. Fatal accidents can be more difficult to reconstruct for investigators. Also, because wrongful death claims need to be filed by a loved one, there may be additional time and effort involved to get in contact with the victim’s insurance company.
The complications can add days, weeks, or even months to a car insurance claim. If you lost a loved one in a car accident, it’s vital to contact a car accident lawyer with a proven record of success as promptly as possible.
How Long Do You Have to File an Insurance Claim for an Out-of-State Accident?
In general, the timeline to file a claim for an out-of-state accident is the same as the timeline to file a claim for an in-state collision. Your insurance company’s policies don’t change according to where you’re driving.
Getting into an accident in another state may affect which insurance company covers your claim, however. California is a fault-based accident state. This means that the insurance company of the at-fault driver provides compensation for injuries sustained from your accident. However, some states are no-fault states, where your insurance always covers you regardless of fault.
This doesn’t substantially affect your situation in many cases. Even in a fault-based state, it is still usually easiest to file a claim through your insurance company, which may then seek compensation from the other insurance company. But this does mean that in some states, your deadlines will be based on the policy of your insurance company, while in others, it will be based on the policies of the other driver’s insurance.
How Long After an Accident Can You File a Claim in Court?
This is a deadline that doesn’t involve your insurance company. The deadline to file a lawsuit in California, also known as the statute of limitations, depends on the type of injury claim you are filing. For a personal injury claim, the deadline is two years from the date you suffered the injury.
While this is usually a hard deadline, it can be extended in some circumstances. The most common example of this is when the injured party is under 18 years old. If you or someone else in your vehicle is a minor, the clock doesn’t start until that person turns 18. This means the deadline is effectively that person’s 20th birthday.
This deadline can also be extended if you weren’t aware of your injuries at the time of the accident. However, there are limits to when this applies. You can’t, for example, be willfully unaware of your injuries.
If you did make a reasonable effort to identify any harm you suffered and medical professionals failed to discover an injury, the deadline to sue for that injury may be extended. The two-year deadline to act only starts counting down when you discover, or reasonably should have discovered, the existence of the injury.
Finally, if the person you wish to sue leaves California, any time they spend outside of the state doesn’t count toward the deadline.
How Does the Statute of Limitations Affect Interact With an Insurance Claim?
Technically, the statute of limitations does not affect your ability to file an insurance claim. However, in practice, the statute of limitations is effectively the hard deadline for settling with an insurance company.
If you believe that an insurance company is acting in bad faith or otherwise offering you less money than it should for your injuries, you might need to rely on the courts to compel it to provide fair compensation. Unfortunately, this may not be possible if the statute of limitations has already passed.
When you try to file a lawsuit after the statute of limitations has passed, the court can dismiss your claim without ruling on it. This means that you may have no way to compel an insurance company to act in good faith once the deadline has passed.
Insurance companies may take advantage of this. If too much time has passed, they may simply deny your claim, even if the facts are on your side. Since you can’t take the insurance company to court after the deadline, it has no reason to negotiate a fair settlement with you.
Keep in mind, though, that the statute of limitations only applies to the deadline to file a lawsuit. It does not affect your deadline to complete a lawsuit. If you have filed a lawsuit within two years, you have met the statutory requirement.
At that point, you can continue negotiations with the insurance company, even while a lawsuit is proceeding through the court system.
The Importance of Seeking Legal Help Promptly
The various deadlines to act start from the moment you get injured in a car accident. Some are reasonably long, while others can feel very tight. The best way to meet all of these timelines is to contact an experienced Fresno car accident attorney as soon as possible after a crash.
Even if you don’t decide to file a lawsuit, having a lawyer representing you can increase the likelihood that you will get fair compensation from the insurance company. As soon as you hire an attorney, they can take the lead in all communication with the other driver, as well as any insurance companies and legal representatives.
This helps ensure negotiations with these parties are as productive as possible. You also won’t have to worry about missing any deadlines, as your lawyer can ensure you meet them.
Furthermore, experienced attorneys can gather evidence to support your claim, increasing the chances that your claim is successful. The more evidence you have in your favor, the more compensation you may be able to receive.
While every case is different, your case will likely finish more quickly and with better results if you contact a seasoned Fresno personal injury lawyer as soon as possible after suffering an accident.
Contact Our Trusted Fresno Car Accident Lawyers Today
If you or a loved one was seriously injured in a car accident in Fresno, your time to act may be disappearing rapidly. At Kuzyk Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers, we have fought for fair settlements for over 100,000 clients. Contact us to schedule a consultation and explore your legal options today.
