The good news on obtaining a police report for a car wreck in Louisville, Kentucky is that you can now obtain a copy through the internet at buycrash.com. The bad news is that it is not always that easy.
Note: This page is part of a series. You may want to read the previous pages to enable you to follow along:
- How to get your car repaired after a wreck
- Leave the car or tow it after a wreck?
- Seek medical treatment after a wreck
- Getting your medical bills paid
I have talked in other sections of this website about using buycrash.com, so I won’t repeat those steps here. However, the thing I do want to stress to you, the injured car wreck victim, is that things go slow until we can get that report. After all, without the police report, you don’t know who the at-fault driver was and who they are insured with. So, if you have rental car coverage and/or collision coverage on your own automobile insurance, use it! It is the quickest and easiest way to get the damage to your car repaired. This is why as soon as I get a phone call from a potential new client, I am on the computer trying to obtain a copy of the police report.
So, after several days, we finally obtained a copy of the police report and the next step was, I had to open a claim with the insurance company for the at-fault driver.
First step, when you are trying to find insurance coverage on the at-fault driver, Google the insurance company that is listed on the police report. Be ready to make a couple of phone calls to find the right insurance company. Several of these companies have smaller subsidiaries that handle the car insurance claims so it may not be clear immediately which company you will be dealing with.
Also, if you can’t find that insurance company, look at the website for the Kentucky Department of Insurance or the website for the state wherein the vehicle is registered. Insurance companies have to register to do business in a state so that might give you a starting point.
Requesting a Repair Estimate
In my son’s case, I opened a claim with the insurance company for the at-fault driver and they asked me to get an estimate through a local body shop. Now, Kentucky law is such that I can take the vehicle wherever I want to get it fixed. However, to expedite things, I took the Camry to a shop that was on the “approved” list for that insurance company. Essentially, that approved shop, already knew what information that insurance company was looking for and how to upload photos of the damage to the Camry.
The body shop took about two hours to look it over and then informed me that the car was a total loss, as the cost to repair the car, exceeded what the car was worth.
From here forward, things went off track. However, for your sake, let’s talk about what typically happens for most car wreck claims involving damage to your vehicle.
Click here to continue to the next page in the series.
