After The Impact: What To Document Before Anything Moves

People first. Check everyone in your vehicle and everyone in the other one, and if there is any doubt about an injury, that decision belongs to paramedics rather than to anyone standing in a lane of traffic. A large vehicle blocking a roadway is its own hazard, so triangles or flares go out well behind the unit, further back than feels necessary, because closing speed on a highway leaves less reaction time than intuition suggests.

Call law enforcement even when the other driver suggests handling it privately. A report creates a neutral record of position, time and statements, and on recreational vehicle claims that record does a lot of work later because the damage is expensive enough that both carriers will look closely. Get the report number before anyone leaves. If the agency does not respond to a non injury collision, note that fact and the time you called.

Do not move the vehicles until they are photographed in their resting positions, unless they are creating a genuine danger. Resting position tells the story of the impact in a way that no later reconstruction can. Once a forty foot coach has been repositioned, the geometry that explains the load path through the sidewall is gone, and the file is left with close ups of damage and no context.

Shoot wide before you shoot close. Four corners of the scene from far enough back that the road, the lane markings and both vehicles are in frame. Then mid range shots showing where the damage sits on the vehicle. Then close ups. Reviewers who were never at the scene need to build a mental model, and a folder containing only close ups of broken fiberglass gives them nothing to build with.

Capture the things nobody thinks of at the time. The other vehicle's plate, VIN plate and insurance card. Skid marks and debris fields with something in frame for scale. Road conditions, weather, sight lines and any sign or signal that is relevant. The interior of your own unit, because contents shift violently in a large vehicle and cabinetry, appliances and slide mechanisms take damage that is not visible from outside.

Then photograph the parts of the vehicle that are not damaged. This sounds pointless and it is one of the most useful things an owner can do, because it establishes condition. Six months later, when the question is whether the roof seams were already lifting or whether the sidewall was already delaminating, dated photographs of sound condition answer it. Without them, the answer is whatever anyone chooses to assume.

Report the same day if you can. Describe what happened factually and stop there. Speculation about cause, fault or how much damage there might be becomes part of the file, and an owner who guesses low in the first call because the outside looks fine has anchored the file at a number that has nothing to do with the vehicle. Say what you observed, not what you concluded.

Ask for four things during that call: the claim number, the adjuster's name and direct line, whether the file is going to a specialty recreational vehicle desk, and what the policy says about towing, storage and loss of use. Write down the answers with the date. Those four items determine most of what happens over the following month, and reconstructing them later takes several phone calls.

If a non injury collision involves another party and there is any question about fault, keep your account consistent and let the carriers do their work. Nothing in a repair facility's role includes advising anyone on liability, and any shop that tells you what you are entitled to is guessing about a document it has not read. Your policy and your adjuster are the authority on coverage.

Most policies expect the owner to take reasonable steps to prevent additional damage after a loss, and on a recreational vehicle that usually means keeping water out. Tarping a torn roof, taping a broken window opening and covering an opened sidewall are all sensible. Do it in a way that is temporary and reversible, photograph the damage thoroughly before covering it, and keep receipts for whatever the materials cost.

There is a line between mitigation and repair. Cutting away damaged material, removing panels, replacing components or having a general contractor start reconstructing an interior can eliminate the evidence an adjuster needs to scope the loss. Once the condition is gone, the file relies entirely on photographs, and photographs of what somebody already removed are a weaker basis than the vehicle itself. Stabilize, do not rebuild.

If the unit is not drivable, arrange storage somewhere secure and out of the weather where you reasonably can, and find out what your policy says about storage and towing costs before committing to a location. A coach sitting in an impound yard accrues charges quickly, and impound release procedures add days. Moving it once to the right place is cheaper than moving it twice.

In California the vehicle owner selects the repair facility. You may be offered a list of network shops during the first call, and those referrals are made in good faith. The issue on recreational vehicles is capability rather than integrity. A network built around passenger car volume rarely includes a facility with a booth long enough for a coach, a bench that accepts the chassis, or a technician who has laminated a sidewall.

Ask any shop concrete questions before committing. How many coaches or fifth wheels went through last year. Is lamination done in house. What is the longest unit the booth accepts. Does the shop bill carriers directly and write its own supplements. What does the photograph documentation look like on a completed file. Vague answers to those questions are informative, and a shop that welcomes them is usually one that has good answers.

OCRV Center works on vehicles at the Yorba Linda facility, roughly twenty six miles north of San Juan Capistrano up the 241 or Interstate 5. Everything is in shop. A collision estimator writes the damage report on arrival, and the estimate policy is simple: Complimentary. Insurance walk-ins welcome. Calling ahead at (949) 799-3387 shortens the wait but is not required.

Within the first week the file should be assigned, an inspection should be scheduled or completed, and a written scope should exist. If none of that has happened by day seven, a polite call asking who owns the file usually resolves it, because unassigned files sit quietly and nobody is notified. Persistence in the first week saves considerably more time than persistence in the fourth.

Keep a single running log: date, who you spoke to, what was said, what was promised. It takes two minutes per entry and it is the difference between saying the appraiser was supposed to come last Tuesday and showing exactly what was agreed and when. Carriers keep notes on their side, and an owner or shop with a matching record has a far easier conversation when timelines are questioned.

Finally, resist the urge to close the file early. Cashing a first draft and signing off feels like progress, and on a structural loss it is the point where most owners lose the ability to raise hidden damage without a fight. The file should stay open until the vehicle has been torn down, the scope is final and the work is complete. Nothing is lost by waiting and quite a lot can be lost by not.