The single biggest thing you can do to speed up your car accident case is come prepared with the right information from the start. Every piece you gather early- the crash details, your insurance information, your medical records, your financial losses- is one less delay while your attorney negotiates with an insurance company that’s in no hurry to pay you fairly. Here’s what our lawyers at Kruger & Hodges Hometown Injury Lawyers would ask for, and why each piece matters.
What basic accident details do I need to provide?
At your first meeting, we’ll want the fundamentals: the date, time, and location of the crash, and the official Ohio Traffic Crash Report (the OH-1 form) if it’s already available from the responding law enforcement agency. If you don’t have a copy yet, that’s fine — we can request it directly. This report typically includes the officer’s narrative, any citations issued, and road or weather conditions, and it becomes one of the foundational documents in your case.
If you remember details the report might not capture, which lane you were in, what the traffic signal showed, whether the other driver was on their phone, write those down as soon as possible while your memory is fresh. Small details fade fast, and even minor ones can matter later.
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What insurance information do I need to bring?
This is one of the most important categories, and often the one people are least prepared for. We’ll need:
- Your own auto insurance policy information, including your policy number and declarations page
- The at-fault driver’s insurance information, if you have it from the scene or the police report
- Whether you carry uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage, and your policy limits
That last point matters more in Ohio than many people realize. The state’s minimum liability requirement is only 25/50/25 — $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $25,000 for property damage — under Ohio Revised Code 4509.20. With roughly 12% of Ohio drivers currently uninsured, there’s a real chance the at-fault driver’s coverage won’t be enough to cover serious injuries, which is exactly when your own UM/UIM coverage becomes critical to your recovery.
Knowing what coverage you have, on both sides, shapes the entire strategy for your claim from day one. If you’re not sure what your policy actually includes, the team at Kruger & Hodges Hometown Injury Lawyers can review your declarations page with you and explain what it means for your case in plain terms.
What medical information will you need?
Medical documentation is the backbone of proving your injuries actually happened and actually resulted from the crash. We’ll typically ask for:
- The names of every provider you’ve seen since the accident: ER, urgent care, primary care, specialists, physical therapy
- Copies of medical bills and records as they come in, rather than waiting until treatment is finished
- Any pre-existing conditions or prior injuries to the same body part, which insurance companies will look for and try to use to argue your current injury isn’t new
That last point isn’t something to hide or worry about; insurers pull medical history regardless, and it’s far better for us to know about a prior injury upfront than to be caught off guard by it later. A prior injury doesn’t disqualify a claim; it just means we need to clearly document how this crash made things worse. This is exactly the kind of nuance an attorney at Kruger & Hodges Hometown Injury Lawyers can help walk through with you during your free consultation, so you know where you stand before the insurance company even asks.
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Will I need to provide information about my job and income?
Yes, if the crash caused you to miss work or reduced your ability to earn. What we need depends on how you’re paid:
- Employees typically provide recent pay stubs and a letter from their employer confirming missed time and pay rate
- Self-employed clients and contractors typically provide tax returns, 1099s, invoices, or bank statements showing lost income or turned-down work
- Anyone missing work should keep a running log of missed days or reduced hours as they happen, rather than reconstructing it later
The earlier this documentation starts, the stronger the wage-loss portion of your claim will be, since insurance companies scrutinize lost income claims closely and look for any gap in the paper trail to dispute them.
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What photos or physical evidence should I bring?
If you took photos at the scene — of the vehicles, the road, visible injuries, or any hazards — bring everything, even images that seem repetitive or low quality. We’ll also want:
- Photos of your vehicle’s damage, ideally from multiple angles
- Photos of visible injuries as they progressed, since bruising and swelling often look different a few days after a crash than they did immediately after
- Any dashcam footage from your own vehicle, if you have it
If you didn’t take photos and it’s still early, it’s worth documenting your vehicle damage and any visible injuries now, before repairs happen and healing progresses.
Do I need to provide witness information?
If anyone saw the crash and you have their name or contact information, bring it. Independent witnesses — people with no connection to either driver — carry significant weight with insurance adjusters and, if it comes to it, in court. If witness names appear on the police report but you don’t have contact details, that’s fine; we can often track that information down through the report itself.
What other expenses should I be tracking?
Beyond medical bills and lost wages, we’ll want documentation of any other accident-related costs, including:
- Rental car expenses if your vehicle was undriveable
- Out-of-pocket costs for medical equipment, medications, or home care
- Mileage to and from medical appointments
- Any household help you’ve had to pay for while recovering, if your injuries have limited your mobility
Keep receipts for anything you’re not sure counts. It’s much easier for us to determine what’s recoverable than to reconstruct a cost after the fact.
What if I don’t have everything yet?
Don’t wait to reach out until your file is complete; most clients don’t have everything organized at their first meeting, and that’s expected. Bring what you have, and Kruger & Hodges Hometown Injury Lawyers will help identify what’s missing and how to get it. Some documents, like medical records from ongoing treatment, naturally accumulate over the life of your case rather than arriving all at once.
What matters most is starting the process early. Evidence like surveillance footage and dashcam recordings can be overwritten or deleted within days or weeks, and witness memories fade the longer a case sits. The sooner we have even a partial picture, the sooner we can start preserving what’s at risk of disappearing.
Why does gathering all of this matter so much?
Every document you provide does one of two things: it either proves what happened, or it proves what it cost you. Insurance companies are trained to look for gaps — a missing pay stub, an unexplained treatment gap, a police report that never got requested — and use those gaps to justify a lower settlement offer. The more complete your documentation, the harder it is for an adjuster to argue your claim down to less than it’s actually worth.
You don’t have to get this exactly right on your own. Part of what our injury lawyers do from your very first call is help you understand what you have, what you still need, and how to get it — so nothing falls through the cracks while you focus on recovering.
Call or text 513-894-3333 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form