Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
What California requires after a crash
The four California reporting duties run to different parties on different clocks, and a separate set of deadlines ends a claim rather than starts one. How fault is decided and what a case is worth are covered in our guides on fault in a rear-end collision and what caps a car accident settlement.
| Report to | Deadline | What triggers it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own insurer | What your policy says, usually promptly or as soon as practicable | Any crash your policy covers | Your policy's notice provision. No statute. |
| CHP, or the city police where the crash happened | 24 hours | Anyone injured or killed | Vehicle Code 20008 |
| The DMV, on form SR-1 | 10 days | Anyone injured or killed, or property damage over $1,000 to any one person | Vehicle Code 16000 |
| Your own insurer, on a hit and run claim where the driver is never identified | Police report in 24 hours, sworn statement in 30 days | An uninsured motorist claim for a vehicle whose operator is unknown | Insurance Code 11580.2 |
Those four duties answer to different authorities. One is a contract. Two are statutes carrying license consequences. The fourth is a condition on coverage you already paid for. Missing one does not cost you the others, which is why it is worth knowing which is which before you start making calls.
What your own policy requires
Every California auto policy contains a notice provision, the clause that says when and how to report a crash. Most name no number of days. They say notice must be given promptly, or as soon as practicable, or within a reasonable time. That phrasing is elastic on purpose, and it cuts both ways: it gives you room when you spend two days in a hospital, and it gives the insurer room to argue that four months was too long.
Find the clause before you need it. It sits under a heading like Duties After an Accident or Loss in the policy booklet, and it almost always pairs the notice duty with a cooperation clause requiring you to help the insurer investigate. Your declarations page will not have it.
A late-notice denial is argued, not automatic. In the cases our attorneys see, the dispute turns on whether the delay cost the insurer something it needed: a vehicle that got repaired, a witness who moved. That is not a reason to wait. Call the same week and put the date of the call in writing.
The 24-hour report to CHP or police
This one is statutory and most people have never heard of it. Vehicle Code section 20008 requires the driver of a vehicle involved in any accident resulting in injuries to or death of any person to make or cause to be made a written report within 24 hours. The report goes to the California Highway Patrol, or, if the crash happened inside a city, to either the CHP or that city's police department.
When officers respond and write a collision report, that report generally satisfies the duty. The gap opens when nobody responds. A minor-looking crash where both drivers exchange information and drive away still triggers the duty if anyone was hurt, and the neck that starts hurting the next morning counts. If no officer came, file the report yourself.
Common carriers, meaning companies that carry passengers or goods for hire, are carved out. Under section 20008, the owner or driver of a common carrier vehicle reports to the CHP by the 10th day of the following month instead.
The DMV report due in 10 days
The SR-1 is the Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California, a DMV form that has nothing to do with your insurance claim and everything to do with your license. Vehicle Code section 16000 requires the driver of a motor vehicle involved in an accident on a street or highway to report it within 10 days when the crash caused damage to the property of any one person in excess of $1,000, or bodily injury, or death. The report goes to the DMV in Sacramento, filed by you or by your insurance agent, broker, or legal representative.
Three details decide most SR-1 questions. Fault is irrelevant: every driver involved owes the report, including the one who was hit. Injury has no severity floor, so a sore back seen at an urgent care triggers it. And $1,000 is a low bar; a bumper cover and a sensor pass it. The DMV's accident reporting page takes the SR-1 online, with a printable version and a Spanish form on the same page.
The deadlines against your own insurer
Uninsured motorist coverage, usually written as UM, pays you when the at-fault driver has no insurance or cannot be identified. Underinsured motorist coverage, or UIM, pays the difference when the at-fault driver's limits are too small for your injuries. Insurance Code section 11580.2 governs both, and it attaches deadlines that most people learn about after they have missed one.
Start with the coverage itself. Section 11580.2 requires the policy to carry uninsured motorist limits at least equal to the limits in the statute unless the insured signs a written agreement deleting or reducing it. Check your declarations page for a UM line. In a hit and run, that coverage may be the only money in the case.
Then the clock that ends the claim. Under section 11580.2, no cause of action accrues to the insured, meaning no right to sue arises, unless, within two years of the crash, one of three things has happened: suit for bodily injury has been filed against the uninsured motorist, an agreement as to the amount due under the policy has been concluded, or the insured has formally instituted arbitration proceedings. Notifying the insurance adjuster is none of those three. An open, unresolved UM claim on the day two years runs is a lost claim.
The phantom vehicle rules
A phantom vehicle is a car that causes a crash and leaves, with an operator who is never identified. Section 11580.2 lets you make a UM claim for one, and then imposes three conditions. There must have been physical contact between that vehicle and you or the car you were in, so a driver who runs you off the road without touching you does not qualify. The accident must be reported within 24 hours to the police department of the city where it happened. And the insured must file a sworn statement, a written account signed under oath, with the insurer within 30 days.
Twenty-four hours and thirty days are short, and they are the two deadlines almost nobody publishes next to this question. If a driver hit you and drove off, call the police today and your own insurer today, in that order.
Reporting is not giving a statement
Two companies are going to call you, and they are not owed the same thing. Your own insurer is owed notice and cooperation, because you have a contract with it. The other driver's insurer is owed nothing. You are not required to give it a recorded statement, a recorded question and answer session that becomes a transcript in the claim file and gets read back to you months later.
| Say this | Not this |
|---|---|
| The date, time, location, and direction of travel | "It was my fault" or "I'm sorry" |
| The other driver's and any witness's information | A guess at either car's speed |
| The responding agency and report number | "I'm fine" or "I wasn't hurt" |
| That you are being evaluated and have no diagnosis yet | A description of your injuries before a doctor gives you one |
| That you will follow up in writing | An estimate of what repairs will cost |
The five lines under "Not this" are the ones quoted back during negotiation. "I'm fine" said at the curb, before the adrenaline wore off, gets offered six months later as proof the injury came from something else. Our guide to car accident injuries covers why delayed onset is the norm.
Report the crash whoever was at fault
Report it, because the reasons are concrete. Your own policy may carry medical payments, rental, collision, and the UM and UIM coverage above, and none of it activates without notice. The other driver may deny fault, may have let the policy lapse, or may carry the state minimum. And he will give his insurer a version of the crash that you never get to answer if your insurer has no file open.
The rate question has a plain answer: a claim can affect your premium at renewal, and no lawyer can promise otherwise. Weigh it against the arithmetic. California's minimum liability limits have been $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 for two or more, and $15,000 for property damage since January 1, 2025, under Vehicle Code section 16056, with another increase scheduled for January 1, 2035. One ambulance ride and one MRI can pass $30,000.
What happens after you report
- 1A claim number and an adjuster
Usually within a day or two. Write both down and lead with the claim number on every later call.
- 2Two tracks open at once
Property damage and bodily injury are handled separately, often by different adjusters. Resolving one does not resolve the other.
- 3The vehicle gets inspected or totaled
If the car is a total loss, the insurer offers actual cash value, what the car was worth before the crash. Photograph the car and its interior before it leaves your possession. It is evidence in the injury claim too.
- 4A release arrives for the property damage
A release is the document that ends a claim in exchange for payment. Read every line. If it releases all claims arising from the accident rather than the property damage alone, it takes the injury claim with it.
- 5The injury claim waits on your treatment
Nobody can value an injury that is still changing. An early offer is a negotiating position rather than a valuation.
The deadlines that end your claim
The duties above are duties to tell someone something. The deadlines below are different: these are the dates on which a right disappears. The statute of limitations is the deadline to file a lawsuit, and no amount of friendly negotiation with an adjuster extends it.
| What ends | Deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lawsuit for personal injury or wrongful death | 2 years from the crash | Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 |
| Claim against a public entity, presented before any lawsuit | 6 months from accrual, usually the crash date | Government Code 911.2 |
| The entity's time to act, after which the claim is deemed rejected | 45 days | Government Code 912.4 |
| Lawsuit after a written rejection, or if no notice was ever sent | 6 months from the notice, or 2 years from accrual | Government Code 945.6 |
| Uninsured motorist claim: suit, written settlement, or arbitration demand | 2 years from the crash | Insurance Code 11580.2 |
The sources, in order: Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. Government Code section 911.2 requires a claim against a public entity to be presented not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action. Section 912.4 gives the board 45 days to act and deems the claim rejected on the last day if it does not. Section 945.6 then allows six months to sue after written notice of rejection is delivered or mailed, or two years from accrual if no notice was given.
The six-month one is the trap. A Metro bus, a city truck, a school district van, or a roadway defect puts you on the government clock, and six months passes quickly while you are still in physical therapy. Our guide to filing a car accident claim in Los Angeles walks the whole sequence.
When the usual rule changes
- You were driving uninsured. Civil Code section 3333.4, enacted by Proposition 213, bars recovery of non-economic losses by the owner of an uninsured vehicle involved in the crash and by a driver convicted of driving under the influence in it. Medical bills and wage loss survive. Pain and suffering does not. One carve-out: an uninsured owner injured by a driver operating under the influence keeps those damages.
- The crash happened at work. Workers' compensation runs on its own reporting rules and deadlines, alongside any claim against the driver who hit you.
- The injured person is a minor. The reporting duties still fall on the driver, but the lawsuit deadline for a child is calculated differently and should be confirmed for the specific case.
- The other driver asks you to keep it off insurance. Your policy may still require notice, and the handshake evaporates the moment a repair estimate runs high or a symptom shows up in week two.
If you already missed one
Not all misses are equal, and the panic usually points at the wrong deadline.
- Late notice to your own insurer is the most survivable. Report now, in writing, with the reason for the delay stated plainly. Do not backdate anything.
- A late SR-1 should be filed today. The exposure under Vehicle Code 16004 runs until the report is on file, so filing late is better than not filing.
- A missed 24-hour report does not by itself end your injury claim. File it, and tell your attorney about the gap before the other side finds it.
- A missed government claim is serious. A statutory application to present a late claim exists, and it has its own deadline, so make the call the day you realize it.
- A missed statute of limitations generally ends the case. This is the one you cannot fix with diligence afterward.
How long you have
For your own insurer, you have as long as your policy allows, which almost always means promptly and in practice means this week. For the police or the CHP after an injury crash, 24 hours. For the DMV, 10 days. For a hit and run UM claim, 24 hours to the police and 30 days for the sworn statement. For the lawsuit, two years, or six months if a public entity is in the case. Only one of those four clocks is a phone call to an adjuster.
Tell us what happened and we will tell you which deadlines are live in your case, including the ones nobody has mentioned yet. No fee unless we recover. Our Los Angeles car accident lawyer page explains how a claim is built once the reporting is done, and rideshare crashes add a coverage layer on top of everything above.