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(602) 345-1818If you were hurt in Phoenix and someone keeps telling you to “file a claim,” you probably have one question: file what, with who, and when? This article walks through filing a personal injury claim in Phoenix step by step, in the order it actually happens, so you know what decisions matter and what just feels urgent. Hiring a Phoenix lawyer is one of those decisions, and we’ll get to where it fits.
Most of the bad outcomes we see don’t come from people losing trials. They come from people making operational mistakes in the first few weeks: giving a recorded statement they shouldn’t have, settling before they hit maximum medical improvement, or missing a 180-day notice deadline on a claim against the City of Phoenix. The process below is built around avoiding those.
This is the confusion almost every competitor page glosses over.
An insurance claim is a request for payment you submit to an insurance company. Theirs or yours. There is no judge, no courthouse, no court filing. The adjuster reviews it, investigates, and either pays, denies, or negotiates.
A lawsuit is a civil case you file in court (in Phoenix, usually Maricopa County Superior Court). That comes later, only if the insurance claim doesn’t resolve fairly.
In practice, around 90% of personal injury matters resolve at the claim stage. The other 10% need a lawsuit to apply pressure, force discovery, or get in front of a jury. So when people say “I want to file a claim,” they usually mean the insurance process. The lawsuit is a tool we hold in reserve.
Knowing which one you’re in changes everything: who you’re talking to, what deadlines apply, and what leverage you have.
The single most important thing you do in the first 72 hours has nothing to do with the law. Get evaluated. Even if you think you’re “fine.”
Two reasons:
Go to an ER, urgent care, or your primary care doctor the same day or the next morning. Follow every referral. Don’t skip physical therapy appointments. Keep every bill, every imaging report, every prescription.
This is the foundation of your damages, and it’s the part you control completely.
Call your own insurance carrier and report the accident. Even if you weren’t at fault. Your policy almost always requires prompt notice, and Med Pay or UM/UIM coverage can pay benefits before any fault dispute is resolved.
The other driver’s insurer will usually call you within 24 to 72 hours. Get the adjuster’s name, claim number, and direct line. Confirm the other driver’s policy limits in writing if they’ll provide it.
This is also the moment to decide whether to talk to an attorney before opening the claim on the at-fault side. Once you start making statements, you can’t unmake them.
The other driver’s insurer will ask for a recorded statement. They’ll frame it as routine. It is not routine. It is evidence collection.
Here’s the rule in plain English: you are generally not legally required to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company. Your duty to cooperate runs to your own insurer under your policy’s cooperation clause, not to the at-fault carrier.
The adjuster is trained to ask questions in a sequence that produces useful admissions. “How are you feeling today?” sounds like small talk. “I’m doing okay” becomes “claimant reported he was doing okay” in the file, and three weeks later when you find out you have a herniated disc, that quote gets used to argue you weren’t really hurt.
Politely decline. Tell them you’ll respond in writing once you’ve had a chance to review your records. Then call us.
The case gets built from the outside in.
What we (or you, if early enough) gather:
In a rear-end accident, the following driver is typically presumed at fault under Arizona’s pure comparative negligence framework. That presumption can shift, though. If the lead driver made an unjustified sudden stop, fault may be assigned to them. Same if their brake lights weren’t functioning. Evidence is what moves those percentages.
For a motorcycle struck during a left turn, the vehicle making the left turn is typically at fault for failing to yield to oncoming traffic. Again, the photos, the road position, and witness accounts decide it.
Maximum medical improvement (MMI) is the point where your doctors say you’re as recovered as you’re going to get, or where any remaining condition is permanent.
You don’t settle before MMI. Period.
Here’s why. Once you sign a release, the claim is closed. If you needed surgery two months later, that’s on you. We’ve seen people accept $15,000 in week 4 and then find out in month 5 they need a $60,000 lumbar fusion. The release wiped out their right to come back for it.
For future medical costs to be included in your settlement, they have to be proven, and that usually requires expert medical testimony projecting what care you’ll need and what it will cost. That projection can’t happen until your treating physicians know where your injuries have stabilized.
MMI takes anywhere from 8 weeks (a soft tissue case that resolves cleanly) to 18 months or more (a brain injury, spinal injury, or surgical case).
Once you’ve reached MMI and we’ve collected the medical records, bills, wage loss documentation, and liability evidence, we send a demand letter. This is the document that opens formal negotiation.
A real demand letter is not a one-page request. It’s a packet: a narrative of the crash, the liability analysis, the medical chronology, the bills, the wage loss, the non-economic harm, and a specific dollar demand with supporting authority.
The adjuster typically responds within 30 to 60 days with a counter, usually well below the demand. That kicks off back-and-forth negotiation. Most cases settle in this phase, somewhere between two and five rounds of offers.
If the offer makes sense, we sign, the carrier sends the check (typically 14 to 30 days), liens get paid off the top, and you net the rest.
If it doesn’t, we go to Step 7.
A lawsuit is filed in Maricopa County Superior Court for most Phoenix cases. The reasons to file:
Filing doesn’t mean trial. After the lawsuit is filed, the parties exchange discovery (depositions, written questions, document requests), and the court typically requires mediation before trial. A neutral mediator helps both sides find settlement. Most cases that get filed still settle, just on better numbers because the carrier now faces real risk.
If mediation doesn’t resolve it, you head toward trial. Maricopa County civil cases generally take 12 to 24 months from filing to trial date. At trial, a jury hears the evidence and assigns fault percentages to each party (and to any non-parties named on the verdict form, often called the “empty chair”) and determines damages.
In Arizona, you generally have 2 years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit under A.R.S. § 12-542. Miss the deadline and your claim is dead, no matter how strong it was.
The exceptions matter:
If you’re handling a claim in New Mexico instead, the deadline is 3 years from the date of injury under NMSA § 37-1-8, and government claims require a 90-day notice under NMSA § 41-4-16. Always check which state’s law applies.
Read more on Arizona’s 2-year statute of limitations and the carve-outs.
Arizona’s comparative-fault rule uses pure comparative negligence under A.R.S. § 12-2505. The rule: your recovery is reduced in proportion to your share of fault.
The math:
Total damages × (100% minus your fault %) = your recovery
A worked example. Your damages total $100,000. The jury (or adjuster) finds you 30% at fault. Your recovery is $100,000 × 70% = $70,000.
Because Arizona’s version is “pure,” you can still recover even if you’re 99% at fault, you just only get 1% of damages. That’s different from “modified” comparative negligence rules used elsewhere, which bar recovery once you cross a threshold.
This matters because adjusters routinely inflate your fault percentage to reduce settlement. A first offer that assumes you’re 40% at fault on a rear-end crash, where Arizona law presumes the following driver is at fault, is the adjuster testing whether you know the rules. You counter with the police report, the witness statements, and the physical evidence.
Fault is also a jury question. At trial, the jury assigns percentages to every party, including non-parties listed on the verdict form. That’s how Arizona’s comparative negligence rule actually plays out.
Two categories.
Economic damages are quantifiable financial losses. Medical bills past and future, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage, out-of-pocket costs. These get proven with records, bills, pay stubs, and expert projections.
Non-economic damages are the subjective losses. Pain and suffering. Emotional distress. Loss of enjoyment of life. Loss of consortium for a spouse. These are real but harder to quantify, and they’re usually where the fight happens.
A complete claim accounts for both. If you’re trying to figure out what your case is worth, the answer depends on injury severity, treatment history, liability proof, available insurance, and how well the damages are documented.
If your claim is against a government entity in Arizona, the rules change before the 2-year statute even comes into play.
Under A.R.S. § 12-821.01, a notice of claim generally must be served within 180 days after accrual. Subsection B defines accrual based on when the damaged party realizes the damage and knows or reasonably should know its cause or source. The notice must satisfy the statute’s factual, settlement-amount, and service requirements.
A separate one-year limitation period generally applies to filing an action against a public entity or employee. The effect of a notice or service issue, and any available exception, depends on the statute and facts.
This catches people in three common Phoenix scenarios:
If a public entity or employee may be responsible, get prompt advice about accrual, the proper recipient, notice content, service, and the separate one-year filing deadline.
What actually slows things down:
What doesn’t slow it down (despite what people worry about):
You can absolutely handle a small property-damage-only claim yourself. For anything involving real injuries, the math changes. Insurers settle higher with represented claimants because we know the file gets built differently.
What we do that’s hard to do alone:
We work on contingency. No attorney’s fees unless we recover, and the specific fee and case-cost terms are spelled out in the written agreement before you sign anything.
A two-year period generally applies under A.R.S. § 12-542, subject to accrual and claim-specific rules. A public-entity claim generally requires notice within 180 days after accrual under A.R.S. § 12-821.01 and suit within one year after accrual under A.R.S. § 12-821. Minority and disability rules can differ by claimant and statute, so the deadline requires fact-specific review.
Generally no. You’re not legally required to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company. Your own policy’s cooperation clause may require communication with your own insurer, but that’s a different question. Talk to an attorney before giving any recorded statement to anyone.
Anywhere from 4 months for a clean soft-tissue claim that settles at the demand stage to 2 to 3 years for a case that requires a lawsuit and trial. The biggest variable is how long it takes to reach maximum medical improvement.
You can still recover in Arizona. Under A.R.S. § 12-2505, your damages are reduced by your fault percentage, but you can recover even if you’re 99% at fault. If a jury or adjuster says you’re 25% at fault on a $100,000 claim, you recover $75,000.
You look to your own underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. UIM stacks on top of the at-fault driver’s liability limits and is a overlooked sources of recovery in Phoenix injury cases. Check your declarations page or have us check it.
Usually not. Most Phoenix injury claims resolve through insurance negotiation without a lawsuit. A lawsuit becomes necessary when the carrier won’t make a reasonable offer, when liability is disputed, or when the statute of limitations is approaching and negotiation isn’t done.
If you’re trying to figure out what to do next, the cheapest call you’ll ever make is the free one. We’ll walk through the deadlines that apply to your situation, what evidence to lock down right now, and whether the offer on the table is actually fair.
Free case review with Jared J. Pehrson: (602) 345-1818. We answer 24/7. No attorney’s fees unless we recover, with specific terms spelled out in the written fee agreement. Explore the Phoenix personal injury resources library for more on how each step works.
By Jared J. Pehrson | Impact Legal Car Accident Attorneys
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