Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
Filing a claim defined
A crash in Los Angeles County produces a sequence of filings, each with a deadline attached, and a case that does not resolve is filed in court. What a case is worth and how fees work are covered in our guides on what caps a settlement and car accident lawyer fees.
The vocabulary matters. A claim is a request for payment made to an insurance company under a policy. A lawsuit is a case filed in court. An adjuster is the insurance employee who investigates the claim, values it, and decides what to offer. Almost every car crash produces a claim. A small share of them ever become lawsuits, and the two run on completely different calendars.
| What you are filing | With whom | Deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Written report after an injury crash | CHP, or the city police department | 24 hours | Vehicle Code 20008 |
| SR-1 accident report | The DMV | 10 days | Vehicle Code 16000 |
| Insurance claim | Your insurer and the at-fault insurer | What your policy says. No statute. | Your policy's notice provision |
| Government claim | The public entity involved | 6 months | Government Code 911.2 |
| Lawsuit | Los Angeles County Superior Court | 2 years | Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 |
The sources: Vehicle Code section 20008 requires a written report within 24 hours after any accident resulting in injuries to or death of any person, to the California Highway Patrol or, inside a city, to the CHP or that city's police department. Section 16000 requires the SR-1 within 10 days when anyone is injured or killed or property damage to any one person exceeds $1,000. Government Code section 911.2 gives six months to present a claim to a public entity. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to, or the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. Our guide to reporting deadlines covers the first three in full.
The ten steps in order
- 1Get everyone safe, then call 911
Say on the call that someone is hurt if anyone is. That brings paramedics and creates a record that an injury was reported at the scene, which is the record an adjuster looks for eight months later.
- 2Photograph the scene before the cars move
Both plates, both bumpers, the gap between the cars, the lane lines, the signal, the debris field. Then two photographs most people miss: the view from each driver's seat down the roadway, and the signal cycling through its phases.
- 3Exchange information and find one witness
Name, address, license number, vehicle identification number, and insurance for every driver. Then one neutral witness with a phone number. A witness settles a fault argument faster than any photograph.
- 4File the 24 hour report and the 10 day SR-1
Both are statutory duties, both run regardless of fault, and neither is satisfied by calling your insurance company. Skipping the SR-1 exposes your license under Vehicle Code 16004.
- 5See a doctor the same day
Report every symptom rather than only the loudest one. An emergency room discharge is a screening for things that kill you tonight, not a diagnosis. Follow up with a primary care doctor or an orthopedist within the week.
- 6Notify your own insurer
Give the date, place, direction of travel, the other driver's information, and the report number. Say you are being evaluated and have no diagnosis yet. Get a claim number and write down who you spoke to.
- 7Find out what coverage exists
The at-fault driver's liability limits, your own medical payments, collision, rental, and uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, and any second policy that might apply if the driver was working.
- 8If a public agency is involved, start the six month clock
A Metro bus, a city or county vehicle, a school district van, or a Caltrans road defect. This clock runs no matter what the insurance claim is doing, and six months is the deadline people miss.
- 9Track everything, from day one
Bills, records, imaging reports, mileage to appointments, out-of-pocket costs, written wage loss verification from your employer, and a journal that records function rather than adjectives.
- 10Send the demand, then decide whether to file
The demand package is the written settlement demand with your records attached. It goes out at or near maximum medical improvement, the point where your condition has stabilized. If the response is not serious, the two year deadline in Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 is what gives the next conversation its weight.
The collision report
Which agency responds is decided by where the crash happened. The California Highway Patrol works the freeways and the state highways. The Los Angeles Police Department works surface streets inside city limits, and the police department of whichever city you were in works the rest. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department covers unincorporated county areas. Request the report from the agency that wrote it, and expect a wait of days rather than hours.
Then keep the report in proportion. It is a useful record of who was there, what was said, and what the roadway looked like. The officer's opinion about fault is an opinion formed in twenty minutes at a curb, usually without the electronic data, without a scene inspection, and sometimes without hearing from one of the drivers at all. An adjuster who quotes it as if it settled the question is negotiating. Our guide to how fault is proven covers the evidence that decides it.
Order of coverage
| Coverage | What it pays | Whose policy |
|---|---|---|
| Bodily injury liability | The other driver's responsibility for your injuries, up to the limits | The at-fault driver |
| Medical payments | Medical bills regardless of fault, usually a small limit | Yours |
| Uninsured and underinsured motorist | Your injuries when the at-fault driver has no coverage or not enough | Yours |
| Collision and rental | Repair or actual cash value, and a rental while the car is out | Yours |
| Employer or owner liability | A second policy when the driver was working, or when the owner lent the car | The employer or the owner |
Two numbers set the outer edge of most claims. Since January 1, 2025, Vehicle Code section 16056 has required minimum liability limits of $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 for two or more, and $15,000 for property damage. And when the driver merely borrowed the car, section 17151 caps the owner's own liability at $15,000 for one person and $30,000 for more than one. Your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, governed by Insurance Code section 11580.2, is what fills the gap when those limits run out.
The public agency six month clock
A government claim is a written notice presented to a public entity before you may sue it. Government Code section 911.2 requires it not later than six months after the cause of action accrues, which is usually the day of the crash. Miss it and the lawsuit is barred no matter how strong the case is, and no adjuster has any obligation to warn you the clock is running.
The next two steps are the ones almost nobody publishes. Section 912.4 gives the board 45 days to act on the claim, and if it does not act, the claim is deemed rejected on the last day of that period. 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 ever sent. Silence from the agency is a rejection with a shorter deadline attached.
Lawsuits in Los Angeles County
A car accident lawsuit in Los Angeles is filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. The court divides civil cases by amount in controversy, meaning how much money is at stake. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 85, a case is a limited civil case when the amount in controversy does not exceed $35,000, excluding attorney's fees, interest, and costs. Above that line it is an unlimited civil case. The choice is not cosmetic: limited civil cases run on restricted discovery, the formal exchange of evidence, and a shorter procedural track, and a case filed as limited cannot recover more than the limited ceiling.
Personal injury cases in Los Angeles County are handled through the court's Personal Injury Hub courts, and the assignment and transfer rules are set by the court's General Order Re Assignment and Transfer of Personal Injury Cases, effective May 17, 2024. Both are published on the Superior Court's civil division page, which is the only place to check them, because these orders are amended.
What happens after filing follows a predictable order. The complaint, the document that starts the lawsuit, is served on the defendant, who files an answer. Then discovery, the formal exchange of documents and answers under oath, and depositions, sworn question and answer sessions recorded by a court reporter. Then mediation, a settlement conference run by a neutral third party, which resolves most of these cases. Then a trial date. Timelines vary widely with the court's calendar and the medical picture, and no one can promise you one.
Costly mistakes
- Giving the other driver's insurer a recorded statement. You are not required to. A recorded statement becomes a transcript in the claim file and gets quoted back during negotiation, usually the part where you said you were fine.
- Signing a broad medical authorization. The other driver's insurer is entitled to records relevant to this crash, not a decade of your medical history to hunt for a prior complaint about the same body part.
- Signing a property damage release that releases everything. Read the sentence that says what you are releasing. If it releases all claims arising from the accident, cashing that check ends the injury claim too.
- Letting treatment lapse. A three week gap in the records reads as recovery. If cost or scheduling is the reason, say so to your doctor so the reason is in the chart.
- Posting about it. A photograph of you at a birthday party is not evidence of anything, and it will still be shown to the adjuster and to a jury.
- Missing the government claim. Six months, from Government Code 911.2, and it is gone.
Claims you can handle yourself
Not every crash needs a lawyer, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. If the damage is to the car only, nobody was hurt, the other driver's insurer has accepted fault, and the repair estimate is being paid without argument, handle it yourself. Take the photographs, file the SR-1 if the damage passed $1,000, and read the release before you sign it.
Call us when any of these is true: you are treating for more than a few visits, fault is being questioned, the at-fault driver was uninsured or carried the state minimum, a public agency vehicle or a roadway defect is involved, the crash happened while someone was working, or an adjuster is asking for a recorded statement and a signed medical authorization in the same phone call.
The four filings in order
You file four things. A written report to the police within 24 hours if anyone was hurt. An SR-1 to the DMV within 10 days. A claim with your own insurer on the schedule your policy sets, and a claim with the at-fault driver's insurer once you know who that is. And, if the case does not resolve, a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court within two years, or a government claim within six months when a public agency is in it. Everything else on this page is about doing those four things in an order that does not cost you money.
If you are somewhere in the middle of that and are not sure what has already lapsed, tell us what happened and we will tell you which clocks are still running. We handle the recorded statement, we track the deadlines, and there is no fee unless we recover. Our Los Angeles car accident lawyer page explains how we build the file, our guide to car accident injuries covers what the medical record has to prove, and a crash involving a commercial vehicle follows a different evidence path, covered on our Los Angeles truck accident lawyer page.