What to Do About Car Accident Injuries as a Passenger

What should an injured passenger do after a car accident?

Being an injured passenger after a car accident can leave you feeling helpless. You weren’t driving either car involved, and your insurance isn’t responsible for car repair claims. You’re not at fault for anything, yet you still are a victim of injuries caused by the accident.

These injuries induce medical costs, lost wages, and other expenses. What should you do?

Can I receive compensation for a car accident as a passenger?

Contrary to what someone might think, passengers injured during a car accident that they had no active role in still have every right to receive compensation.

In fact, in most cases, it will be a more straightforward process than that of either driver involved in the accident. The important thing, no matter what role you play in a car accident or which state the accident takes place, is that you take the right steps afterward to ensure a smooth claims process.

The types of compensation you can receive as a passenger in an automobile accident:

• Medical expenses: Coverage for medical bills, hospitalization, rehabilitation, and ongoing treatment related to your injuries.
• Pain and suffering: Compensation for physical and emotional distress caused by the accident.
• Lost wages: Reimbursement for the income you lost due to your injuries and inability to work.
• Property damage: Compensation for any personal belongings damaged or lost in the accident.

Here are some things you should do if you’re an injured passenger after a car accident.

Related: 5 Types of Car Accident Compensation You can Claim

Get everyone’s information involved in the car accident

You may not have been one of the drivers involved in the car accident, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be included in the information exchange process.

Your insurance will not be responsible for your injuries, as you weren’t at fault. The claims process determines which driver is at fault for the accident at hand. However, the injuries you receive will incur medical expenses, lost wages, and more.

Those are all costs resulting from the crash and will fall under the responsibility of whoever is at fault. Make sure to get both drivers’ information, as well as information on the car accident police report. Whether fault seems obvious or not, it is smart to obtain information from all possible sides to cover your bases.

File an injured passenger claim after the car accident

Just as the drivers will file car accident claims, you should file an injured passenger claim.

Their insurance companies will duke it out to determine who is at fault in the car accident, but your insurance company is typically never responsible for your passenger-injury-related expenses.

You can choose to file a passenger injury claim with only one insurance company if the fault is very apparent. However, if determining fault may not be as cut and dry, you can always file your passenger injury claim with all involved drivers’ insurance companies and allow them to decide who’s responsible for your claim.

Whether you choose to claim your injuries on one or multiple insurance companies, is considered a third-party claim. This term refers to the fact that you are not claiming anything with your own insurance company.

While not the most obvious option, you can consider filing with your own insurance policy. In fact, No-Fault states often encourage passengers to pursue the PIP on their insurance.

Can I receive compensation as a passenger if my driver is at fault for the accident?

If the driver of the vehicle you are in as a passenger is at fault, you can still receive compensation for things like medical bills and pain and suffering. If, for instance, you are in a vehicle with a driver who is under the influence, you can file a personal injury lawsuit to seek compensation.

Factors that determine the compensation you receive as a passenger in an accident

Can either driver be deemed “at fault”?

In a car accident event, someone must be deemed at fault. In some cases, drivers may share blame and both be deemed responsible for the accident. When it comes to receiving car accident compensation, this is a crucial step that will determine the outcome.

Liability may rest with the driver of the vehicle you were in, the driver of another vehicle involved in the accident, or both.

The at-fault party’s auto insurance

If you are a passenger in a vehicle that has been involved in an automobile accident, the at-fault driver’s insurance will, in most cases, be responsible for covering the costs of your compensation. This means that as a passenger, you may be able to seek compensation from the at-fault driver’s insurance company.

Can I still receive compensation as a passenger if the driver is uninsured?

Similar to being in a car accident as a driver, things get a bit more complicated if the driver responsible for the accident is either uninsured or underinsured.

If the driver is uninsured or underinsured, you may need to explore other options, such as filing a claim with your own insurance or seeking compensation from other liable parties.

There are still ways you can take action against an uninsured driver after a car accident – even if you are just a passenger.

What Injured Passengers Should Do After a Missouri Car Accident

Riding as a passenger in a car that crashes puts you in an unusual position. You had no control over either vehicle, yet you may be dealing with the same fractures, concussions, or soft-tissue injuries as the drivers involved. The good news is that Missouri law generally makes a passenger’s path to compensation more straightforward than a driver’s, precisely because a passenger is rarely at fault for causing the collision. Understanding how that process works, and what Missouri’s specific rules require, can help you avoid the mistakes that slow down or shrink a claim.

You Are Almost Always Entitled to Compensation

A passenger did not choose which lane either driver was in, how fast anyone was going, or whether someone ran a red light. Because of that, Missouri law treats an injured passenger as an innocent party who can pursue a claim against whichever driver (or drivers) caused the crash. This holds true even if the driver of the car you were riding in caused the wreck. Missouri abolished its old “guest statute,” which once limited a passenger’s ability to sue the driver who was giving them a ride, so there is no special barrier that protects a negligent driver just because you were their passenger rather than a stranger in another car. If your ride’s driver ran a stop sign, was texting, or was intoxicated, you can pursue a claim against that driver’s own auto liability policy the same way you could against any other at-fault motorist.

Compensation for an injured passenger typically covers the same categories available to any car accident victim: medical bills and future treatment costs, lost wages if injuries kept you from working, pain and suffering, and reimbursement for damaged personal property such as a phone, laptop, or prescription eyewear. What differs for a passenger is that you are not tied to a single insurance company. If two drivers share blame, you have the option of pursuing a claim against either or both, or letting their insurers sort out the percentage of fault between themselves while your claim moves forward independently.

Missouri’s Fault Rules Work in a Passenger’s Favor

Missouri follows a pure comparative fault system, established by the Missouri Supreme Court in Gustafson v. Benda. Under this rule, a person’s compensation is reduced by their own percentage of fault, but they are not barred from recovering even if they were mostly responsible for what happened. As a passenger, you typically bear no fault at all for causing a two-vehicle collision, so this rule mainly matters for the drivers, not you. It becomes relevant only in less common situations, such as a passenger who grabbed the wheel or distracted the driver in a way that contributed to the crash.

Every Missouri driver is required to carry liability insurance meeting the state’s “25/50/25” minimums under RSMo Section 303.190: $25,000 for bodily injury to one person, $50,000 total for bodily injury to two or more people in one accident, and $25,000 for property damage. That coverage is what the at-fault driver’s insurer will draw from to pay your claim. It is worth knowing that these minimums are often too low to cover a serious injury; a single emergency room visit, surgery, or hospital stay can exceed the entire per-person limit, which is one reason passengers with significant injuries frequently need to look beyond the at-fault driver’s primary policy.

What Happens If the At-Fault Driver Is Uninsured

Missouri is one of the relatively few states that requires every auto policy to include uninsured motorist (UM) coverage, under RSMo Section 379.203, at the same $25,000/$50,000 minimums as liability coverage. This protects you if the driver who caused the crash has no insurance at all, fled the scene, or has a policy that turns out to be invalid. Missouri courts have also held that UM coverage is personal to the policyholder rather than tied to a specific car; in Schmidt v. City of Gladstone, the Missouri Court of Appeals confirmed that UM protection follows the insured person. Practically, this means that if you have your own auto policy, or you are a resident relative on a family member’s policy, you may be able to make a UM claim even though you were a passenger and not the vehicle’s owner. Missouri courts have also extended the statutory UM mandate to cover some situations where the at-fault driver is underinsured rather than completely uninsured, so it is worth having any policy connected to you reviewed after a serious crash, not just the driver’s.

Steps to Protect Your Claim

Get medical attention as soon as possible, even if you feel fine at the scene. Injuries like whiplash, concussions, and internal injuries often do not produce symptoms immediately, and a documented gap between the crash and your first treatment gives insurers an opening to argue your injuries came from something else. Collect the same information a driver would: names, contact details, and insurance information for both drivers, the responding officer’s name and report number, and, if possible, photos of the vehicles and scene. Because you were not driving, an officer may not automatically think to get your contact information, so make a point of giving it to them and asking that you be listed on the report.

Avoid giving a recorded statement to any insurance company, including the driver’s, without understanding how that statement might be used. You are not required to accept a quick settlement offer, and initial offers are frequently well below what a claim is actually worth once the full extent of medical treatment is known. If liability is contested between the two drivers, remember that dispute is between them and their insurers; your right to be compensated does not depend on them resolving it, and Missouri law does not require you to wait for that argument to finish before pursuing your own claim.

When to Involve an Attorney

Many passenger injury claims resolve through insurance negotiations without a lawsuit, but that does not mean going it alone is the safer choice. An attorney can identify every policy that might apply to your injuries, including UM coverage you may not have realized you had, push back against lowball offers, and calculate the full value of your claim, including future medical needs, before you sign a release. This becomes especially important when injuries are serious enough to exceed Missouri’s 25/50/25 minimum limits, when multiple insurers are pointing fingers at each other, or when the at-fault driver was uninsured and a UM claim is involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I file a claim against the driver of the car I was riding in if they’re a friend or family member?

Yes. Your claim is against their auto insurance policy, not against them personally out of pocket. Missouri no longer has a guest statute limiting passenger claims against a host driver, so the claims process works the same as it would against a stranger. Most people find that filing a claim does not create the personal conflict they expect, since the driver’s insurer, not the driver, pays the claim.

What if I was partially at fault, for example if I distracted the driver?

Because Missouri follows pure comparative fault, any percentage of fault assigned to you would reduce your recovery by that percentage rather than eliminate it entirely. In most passenger cases, though, fault findings apply to the drivers, and passengers recover the full value of their claim.

How long do I have to file a claim in Missouri?

Missouri’s general statute of limitations for personal injury claims is five years from the date of the accident, under RSMo Section 516.120. A claim based on uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage is treated as a contract claim against your own insurer, which carries a longer ten-year window under RSMo Section 516.110, though it is never wise to wait. Claims involving a government vehicle or employee, or a death resulting from the crash, come with much shorter notice deadlines, so prompt legal advice matters if either applies to you.

What if the driver who caused the accident was driving for work, or the crash involved a rideshare vehicle?

If a driver caused the crash while working within the scope of their job, their employer’s commercial insurance may also be responsible for your injuries. Rideshare crashes involve their own layered insurance rules; Missouri law requires transportation network company drivers to carry specific coverage tiers depending on whether they were logged into the app, waiting for a ride request, or actively transporting a passenger, under RSMo Sections 379.1700 through 379.1708.

Do I need to go through my own insurance company at all if I wasn’t driving?

Not for liability purposes, since your policy is not responsible for a crash you did not cause. However, your own policy may still matter if it includes UM or MedPay coverage, both of which can pay benefits regardless of whose insurance ultimately covers the at-fault driver.

Is it too late to do anything if I already gave a statement or accepted a small check from the insurance company?

Not necessarily, but it depends on what was signed. A full settlement release can end your ability to seek more money even if your injuries turn out to be worse than expected, so it is worth having any paperwork reviewed before assuming your options are closed

Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer

If the insurance companies are in dispute over who is at fault and neither company wants to claim responsibility for your injuries, a lawsuit may be your next option. Filing a lawsuit for additional damages may be the route you need to take to ensure you receive the proper compensation you deserve.

However, even if you do not need to take your claim to court, hiring an attorney is always advisable.

A personal injury law firm with car accident attorneys, like Ortwerth Law, will help guide you through every step of the process. They’ll advise how you should approach your insurance claims and whether or not you should sue for additional damages.

Are you an injured passenger seeking legal representation? To obtain the compensation you deserve, seek legal advice immediately from Craig Ortwerth at Ortwerth Law.

We’ve earned a reputation for aggressive advocacy and dedication to clients’ who have been injured or killed due to an auto or car accident.

We fight for compensation to cover your expenses, including costs for medicines and treatment, and damages for your loss of income resulting from the accident. We use advice from medical experts to understand your injuries and the medical needs they entail to determine how much compensation to seek for you.

Your welfare and best interests are our sole priority, whether we are negotiating a settlement or representing you in the courtroom.

Contact us today for your FREE consultation!