After a car accidents are exciting events for anybody. Whether you have a bumper damaged in the parking lot or whether you’ve had a full-blown car accident. First thing, I’d like to give you some steps on what you need to do because you first. You need to get your head around what’s going on because there’s some things you need to take care of immediately.

Number one, it’s people first. Always look for injuries. Evaluate yourself, evaluate people who may be in your car. Check with people in the other car. Make sure if there’s anybody who’s possibly injured, to notify 911. It’s interesting here in Lubbock as well as maybe some other places here in Texas, the police have sometimes changed when they’re gonna send a police officer out to an accident or not. They will send them out here and they might do this automatically everywhere, but if somebody’s injured, for sure, they’ll send police and of course, EMS.

If there’s no injuries, sometimes the police will not actually come to the scene, but you can still call either 911 for injuries or the non-emergency number and ask them if they would send somebody out or not.

The second thing is to make sure that you’re in a safe place. If the car happens to be in the middle of the accident, make sure you get all the bodies off the road, to where everybody’s standing on the side, so that you’re not risking the chance of getting injured standing in the road. Again, call the police if possible, or at least check with them to see if they’ll call somebody. If they won’t send anybody out, it’s really important, and actually, regardless if they do send anybody out.

If you have your phone, start taking pictures of the damage to your vehicle, the damage to the other vehicle, the positioning of the other vehicles, where they are in lanes, and if there’s any skid marks you can see for either vehicle, that’s very important. This is your only time sometimes to document things on the scene. You may ask around to see if anybody witnessed and if they did witness the accident to get their, their personal information.

Also, try to get the information and insurance information of the other driver. Sometimes when the police come out, they separate everybody and that’s hard to get while you’re on the scene. So if you can’t get it then, you’re gonna need to make sure that you order a police report. Sometimes that can take up to 7 to 10 days.

So, after all those things are done, you need to report to your insurance carrier or to the other person’s insurance depending on whose fault you think it is. An auto claim is something that requires patience because sometimes that police report can take a while, but I recommend that even if you’re waiting on the police report, go ahead and call your insurance agent immediately after you’ve left the scene to report the occurrence, so they can start guiding you through the claims process.

We’d be happy to review your insurance coverage options with you! Give us a call at (806) 763-7311 or visit https://shropshireinsurance.com.