How Long Do You Have to File a Car Accident Claim in Colorado?

The number most people are given is two years, and for a Colorado car accident it is usually wrong. Motor vehicle injury claims get three years, a longer window than almost any other personal injury claim in the state, and the difference has ended cases filed by people who were told the shorter figure by somebody confident.

This post sets out which deadline attaches to which claim, the date the clock actually starts, and the shorter deadlines that expire long before the statute does. The car accident lawyers at Boesen Law in Denver can confirm which date governs your claim before you rely on the wrong one.

The Deadline Depends on What Kind of Claim You Are Bringing

One crash can generate several claims, and they do not share a clock. Under Colorado law:

• Injury from the use or operation of a motor vehicle: three years. C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(n) covers all tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle. This is the deadline that applies to nearly every driver, passenger, motorcyclist, cyclist, and pedestrian hurt in a Colorado crash.
• Personal injury from anything else: two years. Section 13-80-102 sets a two-year period for tort actions generally, and it says so while expressly carving out the motor vehicle claims that fall under the three-year rule.
• Wrongful death: two years. A wrongful death claim runs on the shorter period even when the death came from a crash. Families who assume they inherit the three-year window are the ones who lose the claim.
• Wrongful death after a hit-and-run vehicular homicide: four years. Where the defendant committed vehicular homicide and, in the same criminal episode, left the scene of an accident that resulted in death, the period is four years.
• A defective vehicle or component part: two years. Product claims for strict liability or failure to warn sit outside the motor vehicle provision.
• Claims against a public entity: two years, behind a much shorter notice requirement. See below, because the notice deadline is the one that ends these cases.

Filing one claim on time does not preserve a different one. A three-year auto claim and a two-year product claim against the manufacturer of a failed seatbelt arise from the same collision and expire eleven and a half months apart.

For answers to your questions, call:
(303) 999-9999

When the Clock Starts Is Not Always the Day of the Crash

Colorado measures from accrual, not from the calendar date of the collision, and § 13-80-108 defines accrual as the date both the injury and its cause are known or should have been known by the exercise of reasonable diligence.

For most crashes the two are the same day. The exceptions matter:

Injuries that surface later

Symptoms that appear days or weeks after impact are common, and whiplash is the everyday example. This does not routinely buy extra time, because a reasonably diligent person who was in a collision and later develops neck pain is expected to connect the two. Discovery arguments succeed in narrower situations, such as a spinal injury that only became attributable to the crash after imaging months later.

Wrongful death

Section 13-80-108(2) accrues a wrongful death claim on the date of death, not the date of the crash. Where a person survives a collision and dies later from those injuries, that gap can be substantial.

Minors

Colorado handles the limitations period separately for anyone under eighteen, who is treated as a person under a legal disability. The outcome depends on whether a guardian or other legal representative was appointed and when, and the result is frequently not the one families expect. Assuming a child’s claim simply waits until adulthood is a costly guess, and it deserves a lawyer’s review rather than an assumption.

The Deadlines That Expire Long Before the Statute Does

The filing deadline is the last one to arrive, not the first, and several shorter clocks routinely end claims that were nowhere near three years old.

1. Public entity claims: 182 days. If a transit bus, a police cruiser, a plow, or any government vehicle was involved, C.R.S. § 24-10-109 sets a 182-day window, measured from discovery of the injury, for filing a written notice with the right entity. The statute makes that filing a jurisdictional prerequisite and bars the action forever without it. Six months, on a claim that would otherwise have had three years.
2. Your own policy’s notice provisions. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is contractual, and carriers impose prompt-notice and cooperation requirements measured in days. Missing one can end a claim that the statute would still allow.
3. Preservation of the vehicle. Once a totaled car goes to salvage, the deformation pattern and the onboard crash data leave with it, and with them the strongest proof of impact speed.
4. Corridor and business video. Gas stations, dealerships, and apartment buildings routinely overwrite footage within one to two weeks.

Boesen Law treats the 182-day notice as the real deadline in any case with a government vehicle in it, because it is the one that cannot be repaired later.

Evidence Has a Shorter Shelf Life Than the Statute

Colorado keeps the paperwork longer than it keeps anything useful. The Department of Revenue maintains crash information for seven years and asks that you allow ninety days for a report to reach the driver license system after the responding agency files it.

Seven years of a report, and roughly ten days of the video that would have shown who entered the intersection first. That mismatch is the reason a claim filed at thirty-four months is a different case than the identical claim filed at four months, even though both were timely. The witness has moved, the treating physician has left the practice, and the black box was crushed with the vehicle. The statute marks the outer wall of the room, not the spot where you should be standing.

Do You Still Have Time to File?

Jon C. Boesen, founder of Boesen Law and a thirty-year Colorado civil litigator who still meets clients personally, notes:

“People call us at month thirty and ask whether they are too late, and usually they are not, but I have to tell them what the delay cost. Three sources of proof decide most of these cases: the physical evidence from the vehicles, the video from whatever business was nearest the impact, and a treating doctor who will connect the injury to the collision. Two of the three are gone within a month. The statute is a wall you cannot walk through, but almost nobody loses on the statute. They lose because the proof expired first and nobody told them it was expiring.”

If a government vehicle, a commercial truck, a rideshare driver, or a defective component is anywhere in your crash, get the deadline question answered in the first week rather than the first year. Those cases carry additional clocks that no one mentions at the scene.

What Cases Like Yours Have Recovered

• $770,000 for a client struck by a reckless driver who ran a stop sign, with extensive injuries that required costly treatment and surgeries.
• $525,000 for a client T-boned by a driver who ran a red light and hospitalized with concussion symptoms, significant back and neck pain, and numbness in both feet.

Both files were built while the evidence still existed. Our case results reflect what that discipline is worth.

Contact a Denver Car Accident Lawyer at Boesen Law

Deadlines are the one part of a claim that cannot be argued after the fact. A judge with sympathy for your injuries and contempt for the insurer still has to dismiss a complaint filed a day late, and no amount of evidence changes that outcome.

Boesen Law has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for clients across Colorado, someone here answers at any hour of the night, and there is no attorney fee unless we recover compensation for you. A free, in-person consultation costs you one afternoon and settles the deadline question for good. Contact Boesen Law with the date of the collision and anything the insurer has mailed you.

FAQs About How Long You Have to File a Car Accident Claim in Colorado

Does the clock start on the crash date or the day I was diagnosed?

For nearly every crash, the crash date. Colorado accrues a claim when both the injury and its cause are known or reasonably should have been known, and a driver who was hit and later develops pain is expected to link the two without a doctor spelling it out. Later-accrual arguments work in narrow circumstances, usually where the injury was not attributable to the collision until diagnostic imaging said so. Treat the collision date as your deadline unless a lawyer tells you otherwise after reviewing the records.

Does having three years mean I can wait a year before hiring anyone?

You can, and the case will be worth less for it. The three-year period under C.R.S. § 13-80-101 governs when a complaint must be filed, and nothing about it preserves surveillance footage, keeps a witness reachable, or stops a salvage yard from crushing the vehicle. Files opened in the first month settle on proof. Files opened in the thirtieth settle on argument, and argument is cheaper for the carrier. The rules on how long you have to bring an injury case describe a ceiling, and treating a ceiling as a plan is how value disappears.

Is the deadline different when the crash killed someone?

Yes, and it is shorter. A wrongful death action must be brought within two years, measured from the date of death rather than the date of the collision. One narrow exception extends the period to four years where the defendant committed vehicular homicide and, in the same criminal episode, left the scene of an accident that resulted in death. Families relying on the three-year figure they read about car accidents are the most common way this claim is lost.

What if the other driver was working for a city, a county, or the state?

Then the deadline you have to meet first is 182 days, not three years. The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act requires written notice to the correct public entity within 182 days after you discover the injury, and courts treat that notice as a jurisdictional prerequisite to suing at all. Send it to the wrong office or send it late and the claim is barred no matter how clear the liability is. Cases involving transit buses, snowplows, and police vehicles need a lawyer within days.

Does reporting the crash to my insurer preserve my claim against the other driver?

No. Those are separate obligations to separate parties. Notice to your own carrier satisfies a contract term in your policy and protects benefits such as medical payments and underinsured motorist coverage. It does nothing to the statutory deadline for suing the driver who hit you, and an insurer that has been paying your medical payments benefit for two years has no duty to warn you that the filing window is about to close.

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