What to Do After a Car Accident in Colorado
The steps that protect your health and your claim, in order: the scene, the police report, the doctor, the insurance calls, and the deadlines that quietly decide Colorado cases.
By Adam Fonta, Lionheart Injury Law | Updated July 11, 2026 | 7-minute read
Most of what determines a Colorado car accident claim happens in the first days, long before anyone talks about settlements. Evidence disappears, symptoms get dismissed, and a recorded statement given casually in week one gets read back line by line in month nine. This guide walks through the steps in the order they come at you. It reflects how we build car accident and across Colorado, and what we wish every client had known before their first phone call with an adjuster.
What Should You Do at the Scene?
Get safe, call 911, and document everything you can before the vehicles move. Photograph the cars where they stopped, the license plates, the debris field, skid marks, traffic signals, and your visible injuries. Get names and phone numbers for every witness; they leave within minutes and police reports often miss them. Exchange license, registration, and insurance information with the other driver, and say nothing about fault, to anyone, including "I'm sorry."
One Colorado wrinkle: during snowstorms and other high-crash periods, metro agencies declare accident alert status and respond in person only to crashes involving injury, impairment, or hit and run. If you're waved off to report later, still photograph everything at the scene and file the report the same day; the paper trail matters just as much.
Do You Have to Report the Crash?
Yes. Colorado law (C.R.S. § 42-4-1606) requires drivers to report crashes involving injury, death, or property damage to law enforcement immediately. If police respond, get the responding officer's name and the report or incident number before you leave. If they don't respond (accident alert days, minor crashes), file online or in person with the agency that covers the location the same day.
The report itself comes later, from the investigating agency: Denver Police records for Denver crashes, the local department elsewhere, or the Colorado State Patrol for highways. We pull the report, and the underlying photos and dashcam footage many agencies hold, as a first step in every case.
Why See a Doctor Even if You Feel Fine?
Because adrenaline masks injury, and because the gap between the crash and your first appointment becomes the insurer's favorite argument. Disc injuries, concussions, and soft-tissue damage routinely bloom over 24 to 72 hours; getting examined the same day or the next morning documents the connection while it's still obvious.
Cost should not stop you. Colorado insurers must offer $5,000 in MedPay coverage (C.R.S. § 10-4-635) on every auto policy, and it pays your medical bills regardless of fault, without raising your rates for a crash you didn't cause. Most people don't know they have it. Check your declarations page, or we will.
Should You Talk to the Insurance Adjusters?
Talk to your own insurer promptly; your policy requires cooperation, and late notice can jeopardize coverage. Report the facts plainly and don't speculate about injuries you're still discovering.
The other driver's insurer is a different conversation. You have no duty to give a recorded statement, and you shouldn't: those calls are built to lock you into minimizing language before your diagnosis is complete. Decline politely, never sign a medical release or a quick settlement check (cashing one can end your claim), and refer the adjuster to your lawyer once you have one.
What if the Driver Was Uninsured, Underinsured, or Fled?
Your own policy steps in. Colorado's uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage (C.R.S. § 10-4-609) pays what the at-fault driver's insurance should have, and a hit-and-run driver counts as uninsured, so the same coverage applies even if they're never found. Roughly one in six Colorado drivers carries no insurance at all; how these claims work is covered in depth on our uninsured driver and hit and run pages.
One thing to know going in: a UM/UIM claim makes your own insurer the adversary, and Colorado law holds it to fair-dealing standards with real teeth, including double payment plus attorney fees when a claim is unreasonably delayed or denied.
What Is Your Claim Worth?
Colorado recognizes distinct categories: economic damages (medical bills, lost wages, future care; uncapped), non-economic damages (pain, suffering, quality of life; capped at $1.5 million under HB24-1472), and physical impairment and disfigurement (uncapped, and often the largest category in a serious case). Our Colorado damage caps guide breaks down the numbers and how they apply.
What moves the value in practice is documentation: consistent treatment, diagnostic imaging, and physicians who record how the injury changes your work and life. First offers are calibrated to people without that record.
What Deadlines Apply in Colorado?
The headline deadline is three years for car accident claims (C.R.S. § 13-80-101), but shorter clocks hide inside cases: two years for wrongful death and most non-vehicle claims, one year for dram shop claims against a bar that overserved the driver, and just 182 days to give written notice when a government entity is involved (a city vehicle, a state road defect, an RTD bus). Deadlines for injured children work differently (they generally don't start until age 18), but the evidence never waits; camera footage is gone in weeks regardless.
When Should You Call a Lawyer?
Early, if any of these are true: you needed more than a single urgent-care visit, fault is disputed, the other driver was working (delivery, rideshare, commercial), the driver was uninsured or fled, or an adjuster is already pushing paperwork. Consultations cost nothing, contingency fees mean nothing comes out of your pocket up front, and the cases we can help most are the ones where the evidence was preserved from week one. What hiring us looks like as a Colorado personal injury law firm, and how we handle every kind of injury case, starts on our home page; for crash cases specifically, see how we build car accident claims.
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