California Car Accident Laws: Insurance, Deadlines, and Damages

California car accident laws make the driver who caused a crash financially responsible for the damage, allow partial recovery even when you share some blame, require specific reporting within hours or days of the collision, and give you two years to sue for injuries (three for property damage, and only six months if a government entity is involved). As of January 1, 2025, the state also doubled the minimum auto insurance every driver must carry.

Who Pays After a California Crash

California is an at-fault state. The driver who caused the collision, through their insurance, pays for the resulting injuries and property damage. Fault is rarely all-or-nothing, so the state uses pure comparative negligence: a court or insurance adjuster assigns each person involved a percentage of blame, and each party’s recovery is reduced by their own share.1Justia. Li v. Yellow Cab Co.

If a jury finds you suffered $100,000 in losses but were 40% responsible, your award drops to $60,000. Even a driver found 99% at fault can still collect 1% from another negligent party. No one is shut out unless they bear 100% of the blame.

Those percentages come from evidence: traffic camera footage, witness statements, police reports, vehicle damage patterns, and sometimes accident reconstruction experts. Adjusters begin negotiating fault shares long before a case ever reaches court, so what you preserve at the scene matters.

What You Must Do at the Scene and in the Days After

California layers several reporting duties on top of each other. Each has its own deadline, and missing any one can mean criminal charges, a license suspension, or both.

Stop and Exchange Information

Every driver involved in a crash must stop immediately. When someone is injured, Vehicle Code § 20001 requires you to stop and give the information listed in § 20003: your name, home address, the names and addresses of injured occupants in your vehicle, the vehicle registration number, and the name and address of the vehicle’s owner.2California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 20001 – Duty to Stop at Accident Involving Injury or Death3California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 20003 – Information to Be Exchanged at Scene Show your driver’s license if asked.

For property-damage-only accidents, § 20002 says to stop, find the owner, and give your name, address, and vehicle registration. If you can’t find the owner, leave a written note with your information in a visible spot on the damaged property and notify local police.4California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 20002 – Duty to Stop at Accident Involving Property Damage

Report to Law Enforcement Within 24 Hours

If anyone was injured or killed, the driver must file a written report with the local police department or the California Highway Patrol within 24 hours.5California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 20008 – Report to Law Enforcement This is separate from whatever information you gave the other driver at the scene.

File an SR-1 With the DMV Within 10 Days

Regardless of fault, you must file an SR-1 with the DMV within 10 days of any accident that caused injury, death, or property damage over $1,000.6California Department of Motor Vehicles. California Driver Handbook – Financial Responsibility, Insurance Requirements, and Collisions It applies even on private property. Your insurer does not file it for you. Skip it and the DMV can suspend your driving privilege.7California Department of Motor Vehicles. Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California (SR-1)

The Insurance You’re Required to Carry

California requires every driver to carry liability insurance meeting state minimums. On January 1, 2025, those minimums doubled under an amendment to Vehicle Code § 16056.8California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 16056 – Financial Responsibility Requirements For any policy issued or renewed on or after that date, the required coverage is:

  • $30,000 for bodily injury or death to one person per accident
  • $60,000 for bodily injury or death to all persons per accident
  • $15,000 for property damage per accident

The old 15/30/5 structure left many victims badly undercompensated. The new 30/60/15 minimums still won’t cover a hospital stay involving surgery, so higher limits are worth considering. Insurance Code § 11580.1 requires every auto liability policy sold in California to meet at least these Vehicle Code minimums.9California Legislative Information. California Code INS 11580.1 – Required Provisions for Automobile Liability Insurance You must carry proof of insurance at all times. Driving without it can mean fines, impoundment, and registration suspension.

Every insurer must also offer uninsured motorist (UM) coverage alongside bodily injury liability.10California Legislative Information. California Code INS 11580.2 – Uninsured Motorist Coverage UM pays your medical bills and lost wages when the at-fault driver has no insurance or flees. Underinsured motorist coverage picks up where the at-fault driver’s limits run out. You can decline or reduce UM, but only through a specific written waiver using the statutory language, and that waiver carries through renewals from the same insurer until you change it. Roughly one in seven California drivers is uninsured, so keeping UM is one of the cheapest protections available.

Deadlines to File a Claim

Missing a filing deadline is the fastest way to lose an otherwise valid claim. California sets different time limits based on what you’re claiming and who you’re suing.

Once a deadline passes, courts almost always dismiss the case no matter how strong the evidence. The clock runs from the date of the accident, not from the date you discover how serious your injuries are, with narrow exceptions for minors and for defendants who leave the state.

The six-month government-claim deadline catches the most people. If your crash involved a city bus, a government-owned vehicle, a malfunctioning traffic signal, or a pothole on a public road, you must file an administrative claim with the responsible agency within six months, well before you’d normally be thinking about a lawsuit. You cannot sue the agency until the claim has been rejected or the statutory response period has passed.14California Legislative Information. California Code GOV 945.4 – Prerequisite to Suit Against Public Entity Miss the six months and courts can bar the claim entirely.

What You Can Recover

California Civil Code § 3333 entitles accident victims to compensation for “all the detriment proximately caused” by someone else’s negligence.15California Legislative Information. California Code Civil Code 3333 – Measure of Damages That breaks into two main buckets, with a rare third.

Economic damages cover losses with clear price tags: medical bills, hospital stays, physical therapy, prescriptions, lost wages, reduced future earning capacity, vehicle repair or replacement, rental car costs, and any other out-of-pocket expenses tied to the crash. Keep every receipt and billing statement. Adjusters verify these line by line.

Non-economic damages compensate for harm that doesn’t come with an invoice: physical pain, emotional distress, anxiety, loss of enjoyment of daily activities, and strain on personal relationships. There is no statutory formula, and jury awards vary widely with the severity and permanence of the injuries.

Punitive damages exist for a narrow set of cases. To get them you must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted with malice, oppression, or fraud.16Justia. California Code Civil Code 3294 – Punitive Damages An ordinary negligence case, like running a red light, won’t qualify. A drunk driver going 100 mph through a residential neighborhood might. Malice here means intentionally harmful conduct or behavior showing willful and conscious disregard for others’ safety.

When Your Recovery Gets Cut

Two situations shrink what you can collect even when another driver was at fault.

The first is Proposition 213, codified at Civil Code § 3333.4. If you were uninsured at the time of the crash, or if you were convicted of DUI in connection with the accident, you cannot recover non-economic damages at all.17California Legislative Information. California Code Civil Code 3333.4 – Limitation on Recovery of Non-Economic Damages Economic damages, like medical bills and lost wages, remain available, but losing pain and suffering often halves a claim’s total value or worse. The restriction reaches vehicle owners whose car lacked the required insurance and operators who couldn’t prove financial responsibility.

The second is hit-and-run. For a property-damage-only hit-and-run, § 20002 is a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in county jail, a fine up to $1,000, or both.4California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 20002 – Duty to Stop at Accident Involving Property Damage When someone is injured, § 20001 is a wobbler, chargeable as either a misdemeanor or a felony, with penalties up to one year in county jail or a state prison term, plus a fine between $1,000 and $10,000. If the victim suffered permanent serious injury or died, the prison term rises to two, three, or four years. A driver who flees after vehicular manslaughter faces an additional five consecutive years.2California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 20001 – Duty to Stop at Accident Involving Injury or Death

Wrongful Death After a Fatal Crash

When a car accident kills someone, certain surviving family members can sue the at-fault party. Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60 limits standing to the deceased’s surviving spouse or domestic partner, children, and grandchildren of any deceased children.18California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 377.60 – Wrongful Death Standing If no one in that group survives, the right extends to anyone who would inherit under California’s intestate succession rules, which can include parents and siblings.

Recoverable damages include the financial support the deceased would have provided over their expected lifetime, funeral and burial costs, the value of lost household services, and the loss of companionship, moral support, and affection. One important limit: California does not let family members recover for their own grief or emotional distress in a wrongful death action. The same two-year statute of limitations that applies to personal injury claims applies here.11California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 335.1 – Two-Year Limitations Period