Insurance Claims After an Accident: What You Need to Know
From filing your first claim to evaluating a settlement offer, here's how the insurance claims process works — and how to protect the value of your claim.
How the Claims Process Works
After a motor vehicle accident, one or more insurance claims are typically opened to address property damage and injuries. The process generally starts with reporting the accident to your own insurer (often required by your policy, regardless of fault) and, if another driver was at fault, filing a claim against their liability coverage.
An adjuster is then assigned to investigate the claim, which typically involves reviewing the police report, inspecting vehicle damage, and evaluating medical records related to any injuries. Based on that investigation, the insurer will make a settlement offer, which you can accept, negotiate, or reject.
Types of Insurance Claims
Property damage claims
Covers repair costs for your vehicle, or its fair market value if it's declared a total loss, along with damage to other property involved in the accident.
Bodily injury liability claims
Filed against the at-fault driver's insurance to cover your medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering resulting from your injuries.
Personal injury protection (PIP) / MedPay claims
In no-fault states or with optional coverage, PIP or MedPay can cover your medical bills and some lost income regardless of who caused the accident.
Uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) claims
Filed against your own policy when the at-fault driver has no insurance, or insufficient coverage to fully compensate your losses.
Tactics to Watch For
Insurance companies are businesses, and adjusters are often evaluated in part on how efficiently and cost-effectively they resolve claims. That doesn’t mean every adjuster acts in bad faith, but it’s worth understanding common patterns that can work against you:
Fast, lowball settlement offers
Insurers sometimes offer a quick settlement before the full extent of your injuries or damages is known, hoping you'll accept before understanding your claim's true value.
Requesting a recorded statement
Adjusters may ask for a recorded statement early on. Their questions can be structured in ways that make it easy to unintentionally downplay your injuries or accept partial blame.
Delaying the process
Some claims move slowly, whether due to genuine backlog or as a tactic to pressure claimants into accepting a lower offer out of financial necessity.
Disputing medical treatment
Insurers sometimes argue that treatment was unnecessary, unrelated to the accident, or excessive, especially for soft-tissue injuries like whiplash that don't show on an X-ray.
What a Fair Settlement Should Account For
- All past and future medical expenses
- Lost wages and reduced earning capacity
- Vehicle repair or total loss value
- Pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life
- Out-of-pocket expenses like towing and rentals
- Long-term or permanent impairment, if applicable
Because early settlement offers are often calculated before the full extent of injuries or damages is known, accepting too quickly can mean leaving compensation on the table — and most settlements are final, so there’s usually no going back for more once you’ve signed a release.