Car Accidents
What you do in the first week decides most of what happens in the next two years. This page walks through it: what Arizona law requires of you at the scene, how to pay for treatment without losing the money later, and why the other driver’s insurance is probably not the policy that saves you.
The Numbers That Decide Your Case
- Minimum coverage
- $25,000 per person
- Underinsured coverage
- Optional in Arizona
- Police report required over
- $2,000 damage
- If a government vehicle was involved
- 180 days
The other driver’s policy has a ceiling. Yours might not.
At The Scene, Arizona Law Already Tells You What To Do
Under A.R.S. section 28-663, any driver in a crash that injures someone or damages an attended vehicle has to give their name, address and vehicle registration number, show their license if asked, and render reasonable assistance to anyone hurt, including arranging transport for treatment.
Do all of that. Then start documenting, because the official record may be thinner than you expect.
There May Be No Police Report
Under A.R.S. section 28-667, an officer has to write a report when a crash causes injury or death, when property damage exceeds $2,000, or when a citation is issued.
Below that line, with no injury apparent and no citation, you may walk away with nothing official at all. Injuries that surface three days later then have no starting document.
Photograph More Than The Damage
The other driver’s licence and insurance card. The plate. Both cars in position before anything moves. The intersection, the signals, the lane markings, skid marks, debris and the weather.
Anything blocking a view matters too: a parked truck, an overgrown hedge, a sign turned the wrong way. Cars get repaired and corners get repaved.
Get Names, Not Just Numbers
Independent witnesses decide contested cases. A phone number written on a receipt is worth more later than the entire police report.
Say Less Than You Think
Apologising at the scene is human and it gets quoted back to you. Describe what happened to the officer. Do not assign blame to yourself or anyone else.
Note The Door And The Plate
If a vehicle carries a city, county, school district or state marking, photograph it. That single detail changes your deadline from two years to 180 days.
Ask Where The Report Goes
Get the officer’s name, badge number and the report or incident number before you leave, plus which agency responded. Retrieving it later is much harder without them.
The First Few Days Decide More Than You Would Think
Almost every argument an insurer makes months later is built out of something that happened, or failed to happen, in the first week.
Get Examined, Even If You Feel Fine
Adrenaline masks injury for days. Neck, back and head injuries routinely surface later, and concussion symptoms are easy to mistake for exhaustion.
The distance between the crash date and your first medical record is the first thing an adjuster measures. A week of waiting becomes an argument that something else hurt you.
Tell Your Own Insurer
Your policy requires you to report a crash promptly and to cooperate. That obligation runs to your insurer, not to the other driver’s.
Reporting it is not the same as making a claim, and it is not an admission. Failing to report can jeopardise your own uninsured and underinsured coverage, which may be the coverage that matters most.
How You Pay For Treatment Decides How Much You Keep
This is the most valuable thing on this page, and it is the thing people find out too late.
Under A.R.S. section 33-931, a licensed hospital, health care provider or ambulance service is entitled to a lien for its customary charges against what you recover for the injury. Under A.R.S. section 33-932 they perfect it by recording a statement with the county recorder, generally within thirty days of treating you.
In practice that means a settlement can arrive and be largely gone before it reaches you.
The Exception That Protects You
The statute says the lien reaches all claims of liability or indemnity except health insurance, medical payments coverage, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage as defined in A.R.S. section 20-259.01.
Read that again, because it is the whole point. Treatment paid through your health insurance or your own MedPay is not exposed to a provider lien the way an unpaid balance riding on your settlement is.
What That Means In Week One
Use your health insurance at the hospital even though someone else caused the crash. People refuse out of principle and it costs them real money.
Ask whether your auto policy includes medical payments coverage. MedPay pays your medical bills regardless of who was at fault, usually quickly, and it sits outside the lien.
If a clinic offers to treat you on a lien or a letter of protection instead, understand that you are agreeing to have their full charges come out of your recovery later. Sometimes that is the right call. It should be a decision, not a default.
The Twenty-Five Thousand Dollar Problem
Arizona sets a floor on how much liability insurance a driver has to carry, and a lot of drivers carry exactly the floor and nothing more.
For any policy issued or renewed since July 2020, that floor is set by A.R.S. section 28-4009.
Arizona Minimum Liability
$25,000 for injury to one person
$50,000 for two or more people in one crash
$15,000 for property damage
Policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2020
What That Actually Buys
An ambulance ride, an emergency room visit and one MRI can reach the twenty-five thousand dollar limit before anyone has talked about surgery, lost income or physical therapy.
When the medical bills pass the policy limit, the insurance company does not pay more. That is the whole policy. The driver is still personally liable, but most people who buy minimum coverage do not have assets worth pursuing.
This is the part that surprises people. Being right about who caused the crash does not create money that is not there.
The Coverage You May Already Own
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage pays you when the driver who hit you has no insurance, or not enough of it. It comes out of your own policy, and using it is not the same as making a claim against yourself.
Under A.R.S. section 20-259.01, every insurer writing auto policies in Arizona has to make this coverage available and offer it to you in writing. What the law does not do is require you to buy it.
You May Have It Without Knowing
It is offered at every renewal, and plenty of people took it years ago and forgot. It will not be on your insurance card. It is on your declarations page.
Find Out Today, Not Later
Ask your insurer for the declarations page for every vehicle in the household. Look for UM and UIM, and look at the limits, not just whether the line exists.
Household Policies Can Stack
Depending on how the policies are written, coverage on more than one vehicle or more than one household policy may be available. It is worth having someone read them all rather than assuming.
Your Insurer Is Not On Your Side Here
Once you claim under your own underinsured coverage, your insurer is the one paying. The relationship changes, and it changes quietly.
Being Partly At Fault Does Not End Your Case
Arizona is a pure comparative fault state. Under A.R.S. section 12-2505, if you share some of the blame your claim is not barred. Your damages are reduced in proportion to your share of the fault, and you recover the rest.
That holds even when your share is large. The statute reduces what you collect; it does not close the door.
Why Insurers Push Early
Because every percentage point of fault they can attach to you comes straight off what they pay, the cheapest thing an adjuster can do is call you in the first few days and ask friendly questions on a recorded line.
You are usually in pain, on medication, and missing details. That is not the moment to narrate the crash.
The One Exception
The statute takes comparative fault away from a claimant who intentionally, wilfully or wantonly caused or contributed to the injury.
Ordinary carelessness, being distracted, being a little over the line, is not that. Comparative fault still applies.
If A Government Vehicle Was Involved, The Clock Is Different
Most Arizona injury claims run on a two year deadline under A.R.S. section 12-542. Claims involving a public entity do not.
This is the single most expensive thing on this page to get wrong, because the first deadline arrives while you are still in treatment.
Against A Public Entity
Notice of claim within 180 days
A.R.S. section 12-821.01
Lawsuit within one year
A.R.S. section 12-821
What Counts As A Public Entity
A city bus. A police car or fire truck. A school district van. A city or county road crew, or the vehicle of an employee driving for one of them.
It can also reach a claim about the road itself, such as signal timing or a hazard the city knew about.
If any vehicle involved had a government plate or a city or district name on the door, say so in the first conversation. The 180 days starts running whether or not anyone realises it applies.
Arizona Car Accident FAQs
The insurance company already offered me money. Should I take it?+
An early offer usually arrives before anyone knows what your treatment will cost, which is exactly why it arrives early.
Once you settle and sign a release, it is over, including for the injury that turns out to need surgery next spring. Have someone look at it before you sign.
The other driver had no insurance at all. Is that the end of it?+
Not necessarily. That is precisely what uninsured motorist coverage is for, and it comes from your own policy. Get the declarations page for every vehicle in your household before you assume there is nothing to claim.
I think I was partly at fault. Do I still have a case?+
Probably yes. Arizona reduces your recovery by your share of the fault rather than barring it. People talk themselves out of real claims on this point more than any other.
Nobody called the police. Does that hurt my claim?+
It makes your own documentation matter more. An officer only has to write a report when there is injury or death, when property damage tops $2,000, or when a citation is issued.
Plenty of real injury claims start from a crash with no report. Your photos, the other driver’s details and an early medical record carry the weight instead.
Should I use my health insurance if the crash was not my fault?+
Usually yes, and people refuse out of principle to their own cost. Arizona lets a hospital or provider place a lien on your recovery for unpaid charges, but that lien does not reach your health insurance, your medical payments coverage, or your uninsured and underinsured coverage.
Running treatment through insurance you already pay for protects money that would otherwise come off the top of your settlement.
What is MedPay and do I have it?+
Medical payments coverage pays your medical bills after a crash regardless of who caused it, usually without waiting for anyone to accept fault.
Like underinsured coverage, it is optional here, so check your declarations page rather than assuming. It is one of the few things in a claim that produces money quickly.
How long do I have to file?+
Generally two years from the crash for an injury claim.
If a city, county, school district or state vehicle was involved, you have 180 days to file a formal notice of claim and one year to sue. Those are much shorter and they are strict.
Do I have to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement?+
Your obligations to your own insurer and to the other driver’s insurer are not the same, and the second one is not working for you. It is worth a short conversation before you agree to be recorded.
What is my case worth?+
Anyone who gives you a number before knowing your treatment, your coverage and the other driver’s coverage is guessing. We would rather tell you what actually drives the number in your situation.
How long will this take?+
It depends on your treatment more than on the court. A case usually should not settle until your doctors know where you are going to end up, because that is what the claim is measuring.
