Car accidents often involve a list of new tasks, from scheduling doctor’s appointments for your injuries to getting car repair estimates. Somewhere on that list is obtaining a copy of the police accident report so you can file an insurance claim and recover your damages.
In this article, we’ll discuss the steps to securing your report and what you need to know about your insurance claim. When you’ve accessed your report, you may turn your attention to pursuing compensation.
An insurance claim should be easy, but unfortunately, many injured people find that it isn’t; the insurance adjuster could reject your claim or reduce its value based on their assumption of fault. In other cases, they may underestimate the value of your damages.
Clients often contact us after running into difficulties with the insurance company, but you don’t have to wait. An experienced car accident lawyer can review your case, answer your questions, and assist you with filing an insurance claim or a personal injury lawsuit. If you’ve been hurt in a car accident, please contact Singh Ahluwalia Attorneys at Law for a free consultation to learn more about your options.
Request a Parlier Police Accident Report by Fax or Mail
The Parlier Police Department only accepts accident report requests by fax or mail, but the request form is available online in English or Spanish. After printing the form, you’ll need to fill it out with the date, time, and location of the accident.
Additionally, you’ll select a box for your involvement with the accident, as reports are only available for involved parties. Options include:
- The driver
- A person injured in the accident (such as a passenger or pedestrian)
- Someone who was arrested at the scene
- A passenger
- A witness
- Someone who was cited for the accident (usually a driver, but occasionally a pedestrian or other party)
- The parent or legal guardian of an involved party
- An attorney for one of the above parties
- An insurance agent for one of the involved parties
- A reporting party
- Other
You should wait a minimum of five business days (Monday through Friday) for the department to process your request. After that, you may follow up if you haven’t heard back.
Once you’ve been alerted that your report is available, you’ll have ten business days (starting with the date of your request) to pick it up or request it be mailed to you.
There is a $15 fee for reports of this type. If you are mailing in your request, please include the payment when you mail the form to:
Parlier Police Department
1100 E. Parlier Avenue
Parlier, CA 93648
Fax requests should be sent to (559) 646-0416. If you need assistance or would like to follow up after five business days, the Parlier Police Department phone number is (559) 646-3545.
How Do I Find Out Who Is at Fault From My Police Report?
Frequently, clients are surprised to learn that determining fault is not the responding officer’s job. They will create a report to record facts about the accident, note contributing or causative factors (such as drunk or distracted driving), determine the vehicle maneuvers that led to the collision, and document injuries, deaths, or property damage.
If a traffic violation or crime has been committed, the officer will cite or arrest the responsible party.
However, determining fault is more complex than looking at a report to see if someone was speeding or distracted. It’s helpful to understand that California law allows for two or more parties to share responsibility in an accident or injury.
One or more insurance adjusters (depending on the number of claimants) will review the police report to determine how much fault each party has. For example, maybe you were speeding, but the other driver zipped through a red light.
Perhaps if you’d been going slower, you could have stopped in time, but they should have waited for a green light. In this case, it’s likely that both of you contributed to the accident.
But how much did each of you contribute? This is an essential question to answer because you don’t want to rely on an insurance adjuster’s interpretation.
If you file a claim with the other driver’s insurance company, and they estimate your fault is 30 or 40 percent, you will lose that amount from your final settlement, as each driver is responsible for their own portion of the damages.
This is a reasonable resolution when you are 30 or 40 percent responsible. But if the insurance adjuster exaggerated your contributions, you might only be 15 or 20 percent at fault.
If that’s the case, you could be losing a significant amount of money due to a miscalculation. This is one reason why consulting an experienced Fresno car accident lawyer is beneficial.
Another issue is that the insurance adjuster might believe you have some fault when the other driver is entirely responsible for the collision.
How Can You Get Help With Your Car Accident Claim or Report?
After experiencing a car accident, you could have expensive medical bills, lost income from missing work, chronic pain, and many other losses. A police report can be confusing for the average layperson, and the insurance adjuster will make every effort to save the company money—at your expense.
If you do receive an offer from the insurance carrier, it could be for less than your claim is worth.
The experienced legal team at Singh Ahluwalia Attorneys at Law is always available to read your accident report, learn more about what happened, and discuss your options for pursuing compensation. We can also review an offer from the insurance company to determine if it’s appropriate or if it fails to cover your damages fairly.
When there is an issue with the apportionment of fault or your claim’s value, we’ll negotiate with the insurance company for a more equitable solution. There are no upfront fees, so you won’t owe us anything until we win or settle your case.
Call us today at (559) 878-4958.
