How to Document Injuries After a Car Accident

The days after a collision are loud and disorganized. You are sore and behind on everything. Someone has already asked you to explain what happened.

Start a written record within 72 hours of the collision and add to it once a day for the first two weeks. Each entry should carry the date, what hurt and how badly, what you could not do and any appointment, call or expense from that day. A record built close to the event carries more weight than one reconstructed from memory, because insurers and tribunals treat contemporaneous notes as evidence and later summaries as recollection.

A contemporaneous record is a note made at or near the time of the event it describes, rather than written afterward from memory. That is the whole of the idea. Everything else is habit.

Why do car accident injuries need documenting in the first week?

Injury after a collision does not arrive on a schedule. Inflammation from a soft tissue injury typically peaks 24 to 72 hours after impact, which is why people who walk away from a crash feeling shaken but intact often wake on the third morning unable to turn their head. Concussion behaves the same way. Symptoms can appear hours or days after impact, with no blow to the head and no loss of consciousness.

Recovery is also less predictable than most people expect. Where whiplash improves, most of that improvement happens across the first two to three months and then largely plateaus. By three months an injured group splits roughly into thirds. About a third have recovered. About a third carry lower ongoing pain and disability. About a third carry high levels. At twelve months roughly half have recovered fully and roughly half still carry symptoms. Typical adult concussion recovery runs two to four weeks, and symptoms continuing beyond four weeks are termed persistent post-concussion symptoms.

None of that argues for waiting to see what happens. Active rehabilitation still produces gains after the plateau, so the evidence sits against passive waiting rather than against treatment. What it does mean is that the first weeks of your record are the weeks nobody can recreate later. Delayed care is itself a predictor of poor recovery, alongside high initial neck pain, high initial disability, post-traumatic stress symptoms and pain catastrophizing.

What makes a car accident injury record credible?

Three things. It was made close to the event. It was kept consistently rather than in bursts. It is specific about what changed rather than general about how you feel.

Specific means the difference between "bad day" and "could not lift my daughter into her car seat, asked my neighbour to do it, slept four hours". The second entry survives being read aloud by someone who was not there. The first one does not.

Timing matters for a second reason. The clock on a claim is shorter than most people realize. In Ontario you have 7 days to notify your insurer of an accident benefits claim and 30 days to submit the completed application. A collision must be reported at a Collision Reporting Centre within 24 hours where combined damage appears to exceed $5,000, a threshold raised from $2,000 on 1 January 2025. A tort claim must be started within 2 years of the collision. A denied benefit must be disputed at the Licence Appeal Tribunal within 2 years, running from the insurer's refusal rather than from the accident date, under section 56 of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule. Limits differ across the country, so check the rules where you live. Every one of those steps goes more smoothly when the record already exists.

What are you allowed to do after a car accident?

More than most injured people believe. This section is worth reading twice.

You are allowed to refuse a recorded statement to an insurer. You are allowed to ask for the questions in writing and to answer them in writing instead.

You are allowed to say that a movement hurts during an examination. Minimizing your pain to seem cooperative puts an inaccurate number in a file that follows you for years.

You are allowed to report a new symptom weeks after the collision. Late-appearing symptoms are ordinary rather than suspicious.

You are allowed to ask for any decision in writing, including a denial. You are allowed to ask which policy provision or section it rests on.

You are allowed to bring someone with you to an appointment and to take notes while you are there.

What should you record after a car accident?

Seven categories cover almost everything that matters. Keep all seven in one place.

1. Symptoms, daily. What hurts, where, how badly on a scale you use consistently, how you slept and how your mood and energy were.
2. Medical appointments. Date, provider, what was discussed, what was recommended, referrals made, tests ordered and tests completed.
3. Conversations with your insurer. Date, the name of the person, what was said, what was agreed and what was refused. Adjusters log every call. Log yours.
4. Expenses. Prescriptions, equipment, physiotherapy, massage therapy, parking and travel to appointments. You cannot claim what you cannot prove.
5. What you cannot do. The tasks handed to someone else, the activities dropped, the parenting and caregiving now shared. This is the most overlooked category and often the most valuable one.
6. Time away from work. Days missed, modified duties, hours reduced and any conversation with your employer about accommodation.
7. Help you now need. Housekeeping, driving, childcare, personal care. Who provides it, how often and whether they are paid.

Any notebook will hold these seven. What a structured guide adds is that the categories are already on the page, so an entry takes two minutes rather than a decision about what to write. The National MVA Recovery Guide holds the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs, and it works anywhere in Canada. The Ontario MVA Companion Guide holds the deadlines, forms and appeal routes for Ontario. Most people need both, because a careful daily record filed after a deadline still fails.

Read next

• The First 72 Hours After a Car Accident
• Why Car Accident Injuries Sometimes Appear Days Later
• What to Bring to a Medical Appointment When a Claim Is Paying

Last verified August 2026. Recovery timelines for whiplash and concussion are drawn from published clinical research and describe groups rather than individuals, so your own course may differ. Deadlines cited are Ontario provisions under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule and differ in other provinces and territories. Hurt Square Companion Guides are tools for documenting your own recovery. They are not legal, medical or insurance advice.