What to Do After a Car Accident That Was Not Your Fault in California

Someone else ran the light. Someone else was on their phone. You did everything right and you are the one sitting in an urgent care waiting room, wondering how much this is going to cost you.

Here is the part nobody tells you: being right is not the same as being paid. California runs an at fault system, which means the other driver’s insurance company owes you money. That same company employs the adjuster who will call you tomorrow, sound friendly, and start building a file designed to pay you as little as possible. What you do in the first ten days shapes what that file looks like.

This page walks through the actual deadlines, the actual dollar figures as they stand in 2026, and the specific tactics the carrier will use. If you would rather just ask someone, our free case review costs nothing.

At the scene

Get medical attention documented, even if you feel fine. Adrenaline masks injury. More important, a gap between the crash and your first treatment is the single most common argument an adjuster uses to discount a claim. If you walk away and see a doctor eight days later, expect to be told your neck pain came from something else.

Exchange the full set of information. Vehicle Code section 16025 requires every driver involved to provide their name, current residence address, driver’s license number, vehicle identification number, and the current residence address of the registered owner. Take a photo of the license and the insurance card rather than writing it down.

Photograph more than the damage. Adjusters discount bumper photos. What moves a claim is context: the position of both vehicles before anything is towed, skid marks, debris fields, the traffic control at the intersection, the lane markings, the weather, and the license plates of cars that stopped nearby.

Get witness contact information yourself. The officer may not include a witness who did not wait around, and an independent witness is often the difference between a disputed liability call and a clear one.

Do not apologize. Not at the scene, not in a text afterward. A reflexive “I’m so sorry” is a normal human reaction and it will be quoted back to you as an admission.

The three reports people confuse

These are separate obligations. Completing one does not satisfy the others.

1. Law enforcement. If anyone was injured or killed and police did not respond to the scene, Vehicle Code section 20008 requires a report to CHP or the local police within 24 hours.

2. The DMV. This is the one that gets missed. Under Vehicle Code section 16000, every driver involved must file an SR-1 with the DMV within 10 calendar days if anyone was injured, no matter how minor, if anyone was killed, or if property damage to any one person exceeded $1,000. It applies regardless of fault. It applies even if police already wrote a report. The DMV can suspend your license under section 16004 for failing to file, and given current repair costs, most collisions that see a body shop clear the $1,000 threshold. When in doubt, file it. There is no penalty for filing one that turned out not to be required.

3. Your own insurance company. Your policy almost certainly requires prompt notice of any accident. Reporting it is not an admission and it is not a claim against yourself. Failing to report can void coverage you may end up needing.

What “not your fault” actually means here

California uses pure comparative fault. The California Supreme Court adopted it in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, replacing the old rule that barred recovery from anyone even slightly negligent. Under the pure form, damages are apportioned in direct proportion to fault with no cutoff. A plaintiff found 30 percent responsible recovers 70 percent. A plaintiff found 80 percent responsible still recovers 20 percent.

This is why the other side’s adjuster will work so hard to attach a percentage to you. Every point of fault they can argue is a direct percentage off your check. Expect questions engineered to produce one: how fast were you going, did you see them coming, could you have braked sooner, why were you in that lane.

The police report is evidence, not a verdict. Officers routinely arrive after the fact and reconstruct from two conflicting statements. A report that assigns you partial fault can be rebutted with physical evidence, and a report that clears you does not bind the carrier.

The insurance numbers, updated

Senate Bill 1107, the Protect California Drivers Act, took effect January 1, 2025 and raised the state minimum liability limits for the first time since 1967. Under the revised Vehicle Code section 16056, the minimums are now:

The prior 15/30/5 figures still appear on a lot of law firm websites and insurance explainers. They are obsolete. Minimum uninsured and underinsured motorist limits rose alongside them, to $30,000 and $60,000. The limits increase again on January 1, 2035, to 50/100/25.

Thirty thousand dollars sounds like a lot until you price one ambulance ride, one emergency room visit, one MRI, and one arthroscopic shoulder repair. If the at fault driver carries the minimum and your treatment exceeds it, the recovery does not come from that policy. It comes from your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, from an umbrella policy, from a commercial policy if the driver was working, or from a second responsible party. Finding those layers is most of the work in a serious case, and it is work that has to start early, because carriers tender minimum limits fast and then take the position that the file is closed.

Your rates, and the myth about them

A not at fault accident is not supposed to raise your premium in California, and the reason is Proposition 103.

Insurance Code section 1861.02(a) requires auto rates to be based on three mandatory factors, the first being the insured’s driving safety record. The regulations define that record to include only accidents where the driver was “principally at fault,” and 10 CCR section 2632.13(b) provides that an insurer cannot make that determination unless the driver’s actions or omissions were at least 51 percent of the legal cause of the accident. The regulation also requires the insurer to conduct an actual investigation first and to notify you in writing of the result.

So if you were not principally at fault, the accident is not a chargeable accident for rating purposes. If your carrier surcharges you anyway, the written determination they are required to give you is the document to ask for, and the Department of Insurance takes complaints.

Note the number. Fifty one percent is the insurance rating threshold. It has nothing to do with your right to recover in a claim, which under pure comparative fault survives at any percentage.

Your deductible

If you go through your own collision coverage to get the car fixed, you pay your deductible up front. Your carrier then pursues the at fault carrier through subrogation and, when it recovers, returns your deductible to you in proportion to the fault assigned. If liability is clear, you generally get all of it back. If the carriers split fault 70/30, expect 70 percent.

If you deal directly with the at fault carrier instead, there is no deductible. There is also no leverage, and repairs wait until they accept liability, which can take weeks.

What the other carrier will do

A call within 48 hours asking for a recorded statement. You are not required to give one to the other driver’s insurance company. You have no contract with them and no duty to cooperate with them. What they want is a transcript, taken before you have seen a specialist, in which you say you feel okay.

An early offer that arrives before you know what is wrong with you. A few thousand dollars against a signed release feels like relief in week two. It is final. A disc injury that declares itself at month four is not reopenable.

A canvass of your medical history. They will ask you to sign a broad authorization, then use any prior back complaint or old accident to argue your injury predates the crash. A targeted authorization limited to relevant treatment and relevant dates serves the legitimate purpose without handing over your life.

Silence, then a gap argument. If your treatment pauses because you could not get time off work or could not afford the copay, they will call it a gap and argue you healed. Continuity matters, and it is one of the things a lawyer manages.

Deadlines that end claims

• Personal injury: two years from the date of the accident. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1.
• Property damage: three years. Code of Civil Procedure section 338(c).
• Claims against a public entity: six months. If a city bus, a county truck, a school district vehicle, or a dangerous condition of public property is involved, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim within six months. Miss it and the case is generally over before it starts, no matter how strong the liability.
• Wrongful death: two years from the date of death.
• Uninsured motorist claims run on your policy’s own terms and are stricter still: no cause of action accrues at all unless suit is filed, an amount is agreed, or arbitration is formally instituted by certified mail within two years of the accident.

The public entity deadline is the one that quietly destroys good cases. If a government vehicle or a government owned road is anywhere near your facts, the clock is six months, not two years.

When you actually need a lawyer

Not every case does. If nobody was hurt and the damage is cosmetic, you can handle it yourself.

Call someone if any of the following are true: you received medical treatment beyond a single urgent care visit, the carrier is disputing or splitting liability, the at fault driver was uninsured or carried minimum limits, a commercial vehicle or rideshare was involved, a government entity was involved, the adjuster has requested a recorded statement or a blanket medical authorization, or an offer has been made and you do not know whether it is reasonable.

About NMF Law Group

Joshua B. Adelpour spent the early part of his career on the other side, defending insurance companies. He knows how a claim file is built, which entries an adjuster is trained to make, and what the reserve on your file looks like before anyone calls you. He now represents only injured people.

NMF Law Group handles motor vehicle accidents, premises liability, slip and fall, and dog bite cases throughout California. Consultations are free and there is no fee unless we recover for you.

We work throughout California, including Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Glendale.

(213) 800-0706 | Info@NMFLawGroup.com
21051 Warner Center Lane, Suite 210, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
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