Ultimate GuideTo
Personal Injury

Generally, you want to gather (“preserve”) as much evidence as safely possible. Everyone involved in deciding the value of your upcoming claim (assuming there’s insurance) will base their evaluation in large part on various types of evidence.

Simply put, there is the evidence at the scene of the injury, and the evidence that comes after (medical records, bills, facts supporting pain & suffering). Follow our Ultimate Guide to Personal Injury steps below to make sure you don’t miss anything at the scene of the accident.

Things to collect. Depending on the severity/circumstances of your injury, you may not be able to collect all/some/none of these.

1. Call the police.

   In CA, police are only required to report to auto accidents with injuries. They will often tell you your injury is not serious enough to avoid dealing with the situation. If you disagree, stay firm. They will do a lot of the steps below for you. Also, don’t abuse. Use your own judgment. If the other party is uninsured, you are required to file a police report within 24 hours to trigger certain special (uninsured motorist) provisions of your auto insurance. Not everyone has this coverage, but everyone should.

2. Accident photos.

   For auto accidents, you want photos of vehicle damage and where the vehicles came to rest (stopped) immediately after impact, if possible. For slip/trip and fall accidents, you want photos of what caused you to fall. Use your imagination of other injury types.

3. Physical evidence

   If a tangible physical item caused your injury, e.g. hot sauce bottle breaks in your hands, do not assume it’s trash. Save physical pieces of evidence so long as it’s safe/reasonable to do so.

4. Other party’s contact info.

   Take pictures of their ID, insurance cards, name tags, vehicle (see above). Whatever is available, even if it’s expired.

5. Witness contact info.

   Sometimes there are no witnesses. If there are witnesses, they do you little good unless you have their contact information. If you can get a general understanding of what they witnessed, great.

6. Scan for cameras.

   Do a quick visual scan to see if there are any security cameras nearby. Camera footage may get recorded over, so it’s important that an informal/formal request be made for the footage without significant delay. No one is obligated to give you footage, but most people are sympathetic if the injured person asks for the footage within a few days. A lawyer can use a subpoena, but this has many burdens.

Medical treatment.

A common mistake is waiting too long to get medical treatment. If you’re injuries are serious enough, you may be taken away by ambulance (or even helicopter). But assuming your injuries are less serious, consider going to the urgent care or ER the day of the accident. They will clear you of anything serious, and give you follow up instructions.

Some people don’t have a lawyer at this stage, but if you plan on hiring one, now is a good time. They can facilitate communication between the body shop and insurance company, make a “loss of use” claim for you, and ensure you are getting the appropriate value if your vehicle is a total loss.

If you have collision coverage, you may be better off going through your own insurance company for repairs. They will typically treat you better and may guarantee the work performed on your car.

Our Ultimate Guide to Personal Injury tip here is note that if you choose not to get a rental vehicle, you may be entitled to “loss of use” damages. LOU allows you to more or less recover the rental value of your vehicle for each day it is unusable.

If your vehicle is a total loss, you are entitled to the fair market value of the vehicle (plus tax!) had it not been in a wreck. This value is based on sales price of comparable vehicles in your locality. If you feel like the value the insurance company is offering you is not fair, provide them with listings of other comparable vehicles (Autotrader, etc.) that more accurately reflect the fair market value.

Case value depends (in part) on medical treatment.


There are rare exceptions, but your case value is largely driven by the medical treatment needed to treat your injuries. Insurance companies assume bigger injuries require more medical treatment, which will drive up your medical expenses, and raise your case value.

No treatment, no value.

If you don’t receive any medical treatment for your injuries, the insurance companies will essentially see your claim as worthless and assume all of your untreated subjective complaints are total BS. Medical treatment generates medical records, which end up being the evidence to support your claim.

Treatment without out-of-pocket expenses.


We call this getting treated on a “lien.” An attorney can help to establish the necessary relationships with different medical providers so you don’t have to pay out of pocket. Instead, the medical provider will get paid after the case has settled (and thus has a lien on the settlement for the bill amount). This type of treatment is great if you have no/bad health insurance or want to avoid long appointment wait times or medical red tape to get seen by a specialist.

Avoid treatment gaps.

Gaps (i.e. inconsistency) in treatment will typically delay your physical recovery and will often hurt your case value. Insurance companies assume if you are hurt, you will almost immediately go to medical treatment, stay consistent with treatment and follow through will all referrals and prescriptions. The more you deviate from this, the more imperfect your case becomes.

Our Ultimate Guide to Personal Injury tip here is to find conveniently located facilities/doctors to get your treatment so you can avoid missing appointments.

Don’t negotiate too early.

Insurance companies will often dangle a number early on to entice to you settle before you know too much. Don’t fall for it. While you are treating, your case continues to evolve. Except in specific situations, you should not negotiate the value of your case until your medical treatment is done or nearly done.

Lawsuit vs no lawsuit.

Almost all negotiations start and end before the filing of a lawsuit. A lawsuit serves as a weapon when negotiations fail. At some point, if the two (or more) sides cannot bridge their gap, a lawsuit can serve to impose financial and other burdens on the insurance company. Lawsuits almost always increase case value, but also increase case expenses. They also slow things down significantly, so they are usually Plan B, not Plan A.

***This is why lawyers increase case value. Because insurance companies know if they mess around, a lawyer will file a lawsuit, force the insurance company to hire lawyers, increase expenses, etc. The same fear is not imposed by a layperson.

Evidentiary support.


Insurance companies need documentation to support increasing the value of their offers. Medical records, bills, W2s, pay stubs, photos, and statements (verbal/written) all help to support you, and make the insurance adjuster’s life easier in getting you more money.

Catch more flies with honey.

Being an asshole rarely helps and should only be used in case of emergencies. My personal approach is to be professional courteous but firm in my positions.

Confirm offers in writing.


Settlement discussions can happen through letters, email or over the phone. For verbal conversations, it’s best to send a follow up communication to confirm offers in writing for a clear offer/counter offer history.

Ask for more than what you want (within reason).


First offers are almost never the best offers. Each side normally has some room to move up/down. With that said, if you ask for too much, or if the other side offers an insultingly low amount, the negotiation loses credibility and can often fall apart.

Uninsured Motorist (UM) coverage is incredibly valuable. Far too often, we get calls from new clients who were the victims of hit-and-run accidents or accidents in which the other driver had no insurance coverage. In those situations, there is very little that can be done. That’s because there is not money to collect for what our client has suffered.

UM coverage solves that issue. It’s insurance coverage that you can add to your own policy that will kick in if the other driver flees or has no insurance. There are additional requirements for the coverage to kick in, like the filing of a police report within 24 hours, but the requirements are generally reasonable.

UM coverage also doubles as Underinsured Motorist (UIM) coverage. This means if the driver that hits you does have insurance, but not much, your UIM coverage may kick in as a secondary coverage, allowing you to possibly recover more money.

UM and UIM coverage are one type of coverage. The two names only differentiate the situations that they are used in. Adding UM/UIM coverage is typically not expensive, and if you utilize your UM/UIM coverage, your insurance premiums will not be increased (this is the law).
We strongly recommend all of our clients to add this coverage to their policy.