Knowing exactly what to do after an accident is not common knowledge. In fact, the complex web of insurance, medical treatment, bills, deadlines and paperwork are both confusing and overwhelming.
This article keeps things simple, and highlights the important things in simple terms.
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Start With the 30-Day Clock
Your own insurance covers the medical bills after a New York crash, before anyone argues about blame. There is a catch. Nothing pays until you file a written no-fault application, and the deadline is 30 days from the accident. People miss that window because they assume someone else is handling the paperwork. Nobody is.
Driver, passenger, pedestrian, cyclist: in New York, each of those people holds a claim of their own. Passengers and pedestrians are the ones who most often do not know it, especially when a friend or relative was driving.
An adjuster will probably call this week. A quick settlement offer may follow. Both are routine moves in a process built to close files cheaply. Neither can predict what your neck or back will look like in six months. Below is the sequence of what comes next, and where the traps sit.
Medical Bills Come First. Fault Comes Later.
New York is a no-fault state. Under Insurance Law § 5102, the basic policy provides up to $50,000 per person in benefits: medical treatment, 80 percent of lost wages up to $2,000 per month for up to three years, and up to $25 per day for expenses like transportation to appointments. These benefits do not depend on blame. They are paid even if you caused the crash.
Which policy pays depends on where you were. Occupants claim against the policy covering the vehicle they were in. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car claims against the policy covering that vehicle. Either way, the no-fault application must be filed within 30 days of the crash. Symptoms that surface late do not extend it.
And symptoms do surface late. A stiff neck at the scene can turn into radiating pain by week two. See a doctor now. Describe every symptom, and go back as new ones appear. Those first weeks of records become the spine of your claim. If you heal, the visits cost you little. If you do not, they may decide the case.
Two Carriers, Two Very Different Conversations
You may hear from two insurance companies, and they do not stand in the same place. Your own carrier is entitled to your cooperation. Report the crash promptly and answer its questions honestly. The other driver's carrier is different. You have no obligation to give it a recorded statement, and there is rarely a reason to do so early.
None of this is gamesmanship. Every carrier builds a file, and everything you say goes into it. An offhand "I'm feeling okay," offered out of politeness three days in, reads later like a medical opinion. Your injuries have not finished showing themselves yet. The file does not know that.
So keep it simple. Give your own carrier the facts. Send the other carrier's questions to your lawyer if you have one, or decline the recorded statement until you understand your injuries. After thirty-plus years of these cases, I can report a consistent pattern. Early recorded statements serve the carrier that took them, never the person who gave them.
Why the First Offer Is Priced Wrong
A settlement offer can arrive within weeks. With bills stacking up and work uncertain, the number can look like relief. Look closer. It is a price set before anyone knows what the injury will become.
An honest valuation waits for a stable medical picture. Injections? Surgery? A full return to your job, or not? Each answer moves the value of a case dramatically, and each takes months to arrive. An offer in week three prices every one of those questions at zero.
The law adds another layer. Pain and suffering damages after a New York car crash require proof of a serious injury as defined by Insurance Law § 5102(d). The categories are death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member, and significant limitation of use of a body function or system. Whether your injury clears that bar often cannot be known early. A release signed now is final either way. Sign it, and the claim ends, no matter what next month's MRI shows.
Shared Blame Does Not Automatically Sink You
Plenty of people abandon a claim because they believe they were partly to blame. That belief costs them money. New York's rule for car accident cases is strict, but it is not a trapdoor, and you should know exactly how it works.
For lawsuits filed on or after May 26, 2026, CPLR § 1411(b) governs motor vehicle injury claims. You are barred from recovery if your share of fault is greater than the combined fault of the parties you are seeking recovery from. If your fault does not exceed theirs, you can still recover, with your damages reduced by your percentage of fault. Under Insurance Law § 5104, fault is decided first, before the serious injury question is even reached.
That rule puts fault evidence at the center of every case. Skid marks fade. Camera footage gets overwritten, sometimes within days. Witnesses move and forget. Your fault percentage is not a fixed fact waiting to be found. It is a conclusion built from evidence, and the side that gathers evidence early usually shapes it.
One more caution. New York caps pain and suffering at $100,000 for certain claimants under Insurance Law § 5104(d): drivers of an uninsured vehicle they were required to insure, people convicted of impaired driving connected to the crash, and people convicted of a felony connected to it. If any of that touches your situation, get advice before deciding anything.
No Insurance on the Other Car, or No Other Car at All
New York's required minimums are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident in bodily injury coverage. Serious injuries burn through those numbers fast. Some drivers carry nothing. Some flee.
Uninsured motorist coverage exists for exactly this. Under Insurance Law § 3420(f), your own policy includes UM protection, and it covers you as a pedestrian or cyclist too, not only behind the wheel. UM claims carry their own strict notice deadlines, often as short as 90 days under the policy terms. After a hit-and-run or an uninsured driver, treat notice as urgent.
A different worry stops passengers and cyclists hurt by someone they know: the fear that a claim means suing a friend. In practice, it does not. The claim runs against the insurance policy. Your friend paid premiums for precisely this moment.
When a Lawyer Actually Earns the Fee
You may not need a lawyer if there is no injury and the vehicle is just banged up a little. That is a property damage claim you can handle yourself.
An injury changes the math. Fault percentage now controls whether you recover at all, and fault is proven with evidence that vanishes quickly. The serious injury threshold demands a medical record built carefully over months. Deadlines run on separate tracks: 30 days for no-fault, short policy windows for UM claims, and a three-year limit on the injury lawsuit itself under CPLR § 214. A lawyer's early work is to lock down the fault evidence, track every deadline, and make sure the medical record tells the whole story.
We represent injured people across New York City and Long Island who need help navigating this web of insurance, paperwork and deadlines. If you were hurt, talk to us before you talk to the other carrier, and well before day 30.
