What Happens If You Miss the Deadline to File a Car Accident Claim?

The short answer is that the claim ends, and it ends permanently. A Colorado court that dismisses a complaint as untimely is not sending you away to try again. The longer answer is that a handful of situations survive an expired deadline, and a surprising number of people who believe they are out of time are looking at the wrong date on the wrong claim.

This post covers what actually happens when a filing deadline passes, which exceptions Colorado recognizes, and what is still worth doing this week. Boesen Law’s Denver car accident lawyers can tell you within one conversation whether anything remains.

Nothing Happens Automatically

A limitations period is not self-executing. It is an affirmative defense, which means the defendant has to raise it in the answer to your complaint. A defendant who fails to plead it waives it.

That sounds like an opening, and occasionally it is one, but it is a thin reed to build a case on. Insurance defense counsel plead limitations reflexively, and it is usually the first line of the answer. In practice, the sequence is: the complaint gets filed, the defense moves to dismiss on the deadline, and the court dismisses. The dismissal resolves the case on the merits, so there is no refiling it later.

Before that point, the practical effect starts earlier. Once an adjuster’s file shows the period has run, the negotiation ends, because the carrier no longer faces any risk of being sued. Once the risk of trial disappears, nobody on the other side ever has to weigh the burden of proof in a civil case, and the only thing that made the carrier negotiate goes with it. Offers that existed the previous month evaporate.

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

The Situations That Actually Survive

Colorado recognizes a narrow set of circumstances in which a claim outlives the ordinary deadline. Each is fact-specific, and none of them is a general excuse for delay.

The injured person was a minor

A claimant under eighteen counts as a person under a legal disability, and the outcome turns on whether a guardian or other representative was appointed and on what date. Where one was in place, the ordinary period generally applies, with a floor of two years measured from that appointment. Where nobody was ever appointed, the claim can survive until the later of the ordinary period or two years after the disability ends. Real cases have died on the assumption that a child’s claim simply waits for their eighteenth birthday, so this needs a lawyer reading the actual facts.

A timely case was dismissed for jurisdiction or venue

If you filed within the period and the case was terminated because the court lacked jurisdiction or the venue was improper, C.R.S. § 13-80-111 allows a new action on the same cause within ninety days after that termination, or within the original period, whichever is later. It applies to cases first commenced in federal court as well. It does not rescue a case that was never filed on time in the first place, and it does not cover dismissals on other grounds.

The injured person died before the period ran

Where a person entitled to bring an action dies before the limitations period expires and the cause of action survives, the personal representative may commence the action within one year after the date of death. A family that spent months on probate before anyone looked at the crash claim frequently has more room than they assume.

The claim against your own insurer is a separate claim

Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims are governed by their own limitations statute, § 13-80-107.5, which runs three years from accrual and defines accrual by when the injury and its cause were known or reasonably should have been known. It also contains a provision that matters here: where the underlying liability claim against the at-fault driver was preserved in time, an underinsured motorist action or arbitration is timely if brought within two years after the insured received payment of that settlement or judgment. That is why preserving the claim against the driver protects a second claim most people never think about, and why uninsured motorist accidents in Colorado are worth reviewing separately even after the third-party claim looks finished.

There is another defendant with a different clock

One crash frequently produces more than one target, and they do not expire together. A defective component claim, a claim against the employer of a commercial driver, a dram shop claim against the bar that overserved, or a claim against a road contractor each carry their own deadlines and their own accrual dates. A truck accident with a motor carrier, a broker, and a maintenance contractor behind it can have viable defendants long after the driver’s claim has closed.

What Does Not Extend a Colorado Deadline

The arguments people arrive with, in order of how often they come up:

• “I did not know there was a deadline.” Not a basis for tolling. Colorado does not require notice of the limitations period.
• “The adjuster kept telling me we were close.” Ongoing negotiation tolls nothing, and no carrier is obligated to warn you the period is closing, which is one reason a low settlement offer that lingers for months should raise questions rather than hope. Colorado recognizes equitable tolling only in narrow circumstances, generally where a defendant’s own wrongful conduct prevented a timely filing or where genuinely extraordinary circumstances made filing impossible.
• “I was still treating.” Medical treatment and the filing deadline run independently. A complaint can be filed while care continues, and often has to be.
• “I sent a demand letter before the deadline.” Only a complaint filed with the court stops the clock. Demands, claim numbers, and recorded statements do not.
• “The insurer paid my medical payments benefit.” Payment of first-party benefits under your own policy has no effect on the deadline to sue the driver who hit you.

If the Deadline Was Missed, Do These Things This Week

1. Pin down the actual crash date and the actual claim types. People routinely misremember the year, and a motor vehicle claim carries three years rather than the two years most sources quote.
2. Identify every potential defendant, not just the driver. Employers, vehicle owners, component manufacturers, contractors, and property owners have separate exposure and separate clocks.
3. Pull your own policy declarations. Medical payments coverage and underinsured motorist coverage are contractual claims against your carrier, and among the Colorado auto insurance coverages on a standard policy, the medical payments benefit is the one most often left unclaimed.
4. Check whether anyone involved was a minor at the time. A passenger’s claim can remain alive after the driver’s has closed.
5. Collect what you still have. Photographs, the crash report, medical records, and correspondence cost nothing to gather and determine whether any remaining avenue is worth pursuing.
6. Get a lawyer to look at it in days, not months. If something is still alive, it is alive on a clock of its own.

Is Anything Left of Your Claim?

Adam Kehrli, who has spent more than twenty years handling injury claims in Colorado, notes:

“I take these calls regularly and the first thing I do is check whether the caller is right about being late, because a good share of the time they are not. They were told two years by somebody who was thinking about a slip and fall, and a crash claim gets three. Or the driver’s claim really has expired and nobody has looked at the underinsured motorist coverage on their own policy, which is a separate contract with its own deadline. Or the person injured in the back seat was fifteen. When the deadline genuinely has passed on every claim, I say so plainly, because the worst outcome is somebody spending another year hoping.”

Where a case was genuinely lost to a deadline while a lawyer was handling it, that is a different conversation with its own deadline attached, and it is worth having early.

What Cases Like Yours Have Recovered

• $750,000 for a client struck by a left-turning car while biking across a crosswalk, with a leg fracture, a concussion, and other injuries.
• $390,000 for a client struck by a car that ran a stop sign while crossing the street, diagnosed with a severe concussion and body pain.

Both claims were brought while they were still claims. Our case results come from files opened early enough to build.

Contact a Denver Car Accident Lawyer at Boesen Law

If you are reading this because a date has passed, the useful step is a single conversation that establishes what is actually gone and what is not. That answer takes one call, and it is better than another month of guessing.

Backed by decades of combined legal experience, Boesen Law fights for the maximum compensation you deserve. Somebody here picks up at any hour including weekends, our team handles cases in Russian and Spanish as well as English, and there is no attorney fee unless we recover compensation for you. Come to a free, in-person consultation with the crash date, the police report if you kept it, and your own insurance declarations page. Contact Boesen Law and we will give you a straight answer.

FAQs About Missing the Deadline to File a Car Accident Claim in Colorado

If the deadline passed, is the case over the moment I file?

Not the moment you file, but shortly after. The limitations period is an affirmative defense the defendant has to raise, so a complaint filed late is accepted by the clerk and proceeds until the defense pleads it. Insurance defense counsel raise it as a matter of course, the court dismisses, and the dismissal ends the claim rather than pausing it. Filing anyway to see what happens is not a strategy, and it can expose you to a fee request.

Can I still use my own insurance after the deadline against the driver expired?

Possibly, because those are separate claims under separate rules. Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims are governed by C.R.S. § 13-80-107.5, which measures three years from accrual and, where the underlying liability claim was preserved in time, allows two years from payment of that settlement or judgment. Medical payments coverage is a contract benefit with its own claim procedures. Neither is automatic, and both need to be reviewed against your actual policy language.

My child was hurt in the crash. Did their claim expire with mine?

Not necessarily, and this is the exception worth checking first. Colorado treats a person under eighteen as being under a legal disability, and the analysis turns on whether a legal representative was appointed and when. Where one is in place, the period generally runs normally, with the representative allowed no fewer than two years from appointment. Where none was appointed, the period can extend to two years after the disability is removed. The variables make this a question for a lawyer rather than a calculator.

The crash involved a city vehicle and nobody sent a notice. Is that fixable?

Almost never. C.R.S. § 24-10-109 demands a written notice, delivered to the right public entity, inside 182 days of discovering the injury. That filing is a jurisdictional prerequisite, and the statute says an action is forever barred without it. Courts apply it strictly. The one thing worth verifying is whether the vehicle really belonged to a public entity, because contractors, transit operators, and leased fleets are not always what they appear to be at the scene.

Why is everyone so insistent about deadlines when three years sounds like plenty?

Because the deadline is only the last thing to fail. The outer filing limits on injury claims end a case outright, but long before that point the video is overwritten, the vehicle is crushed, the witness has moved, and the treating physician has left the practice. Cases are rarely lost on the statute. They are lost in the first month, and the statute is simply when somebody finally notices.

Call (303) 999-9999 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form