If you were hurt in a Colorado car crash, the deadline to sue is three years from the date of the wreck, not the two years that applies in most states. That comes from C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), which covers "all tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle."1 It's a longer window than the national norm, but Colorado layers several exceptions on top of it, and a few of them are much shorter than three years. Missing one can end a claim no matter how strong the underlying case is.
This piece covers what's specific to Colorado: the exact statute behind the three-year rule, when the clock can start later than the crash date, what changes if the injured person is a minor, why a wrongful death claim runs on its own shorter timeline, what happens when a government vehicle or a public road is involved, and how claims against your own insurer work.
The three-year rule, and why it's longer than the state's default
Colorado's general statute of limitations for negligence and most other tort claims is two years, set out in C.R.S. 13-80-102.2 Car crash claims are the exception. The legislature carved motor vehicle bodily injury and property damage claims out into their own three-year category under 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), and that three-year period is what actually governs a typical Colorado car accident case.1 It applies whether you're suing over a broken bone, a totaled car, or both. The clock is measured "after the cause of action accrues," and for most crashes that means the date of the collision itself, since both the injury and its cause are obvious the moment it happens.
When the clock doesn't start on the day of the crash
Not every injury shows up immediately. Colorado's discovery rule, codified at C.R.S. 13-80-108(1), says a cause of action accrues "on the date both the injury and its cause are known or should have been known by the exercise of reasonable diligence."3 For a typical fender-bender with an obvious injury, that date is the crash date, full stop. But if a herniated disc doesn't show up on imaging until months later, or a mechanical defect in the vehicle isn't discovered until a post-crash inspection, the three-year clock can start on the later discovery date instead of the day of impact. This is a narrow exception, and insurers will fight over when you should have known, so it's not something to lean on if your injury was apparent at the scene.
Minors get extra time to sue
If the injured person was under 18 at the time of the crash, C.R.S. 13-81-103 tolls the statute of limitations for the entire period they're a minor.4 Once that disability ends, the statute gives them the normal limitations period or two years after the disability is removed, whichever is longer.4 In practice, a child hurt in a Colorado car accident has until two years after turning 18, meaning until their 20th birthday, to bring their own claim, even though that's well past three years from the crash date. A parent or guardian can still pursue a claim on the child's behalf sooner, but the child's own right to sue doesn't expire on the same schedule as an adult's.
A wrongful death claim runs on a different, shorter clock
This is the exception most families don't expect. If a Colorado car crash is fatal, the claim brought by surviving family members is a separate wrongful death action under Colorado's Wrongful Death Act. It follows the general two-year period in C.R.S. 13-80-102, not the three-year motor vehicle period that applies to an injury claim.2 5 The two years runs from the date of death.
There's one significant exception that extends it: if the at-fault driver committed vehicular homicide and, as part of the same criminal episode, left the scene of the crash, the wrongful death claim gets four years instead of two.2 Outside of that hit-and-run-plus-vehicular-homicide scenario, families are working with a two-year deadline, not three. It's also worth knowing that wrongful death claims arising from a crash are subject to Colorado's noneconomic damages cap of $2,125,000 for claims filed on or after January 1, 2025, adjusted for inflation every two years starting in 2028, separate from the $1,500,000 cap that applies to a surviving victim's own personal injury claim.6
If a government vehicle or a public road caused the crash
Colorado winters mean snowplows, transit buses, and other government vehicles share the road constantly, and road maintenance failures, black ice on an unsalted city street, a poorly marked construction zone, can also put a public entity on the hook. Either scenario pulls the claim out of the ordinary rules and into the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act.
Under C.R.S. 24-10-109, anyone claiming an injury caused by a public entity or public employee must send written notice of the claim within 182 days of discovering the injury, to the attorney general if the claim is against the state, or to the governing body, or its attorney, if it's against a city, county, or special district.7 This isn't a formality. The statute says noncompliance shall forever bar any such action, and Colorado courts treat it as a jurisdictional requirement rather than a defense that can be waived.7 After proper notice, the actual lawsuit still has to be filed within the limitations period that would otherwise apply, which for most of these claims is the general two-year period, not the three years available in an ordinary vehicle-on-vehicle crash.7 If there's any chance a government vehicle or a public road defect was involved, getting the official crash report early matters, since it will identify the vehicle owner and reporting agency.8 Our Colorado crash report guide covers how to get one.
Claims against your own insurer run separately
Colorado requires every auto policy to include uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage unless the policyholder rejects it in writing.9 If you're hit by an uninsured driver, or an underinsured driver whose policy doesn't cover your full losses, you're filing a claim against your own insurer, and that claim has its own statute of limitations under C.R.S. 13-80-107.5: three years, accruing when the existence of the injury or damage and its cause are known or should have been known.10
There's a wrinkle for underinsured motorist claims specifically. If you first pursue the at-fault driver and later receive a settlement or judgment from them, you get two years from the date you received that payment to bring the underinsured motorist claim or demand arbitration, even if that pushes past the original three years. But the reverse isn't true: you never get less than three years from the crash to pursue that claim, even if the underlying case against the other driver dragged on.10 Settling with the at-fault driver's insurer doesn't automatically start a fresh clock on everything else, so it's worth tracking this deadline separately from the main injury claim.
Property damage follows the same three years
The same subsection that covers bodily injury, 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), also covers property damage claims arising from a motor vehicle crash, so a claim over vehicle damage runs on the same three-year statute as a personal injury claim from the same wreck.1 If your car was repaired properly but is still worth less on resale because of the accident history, that's a separate diminished value claim; our Colorado diminished value page covers how that works.
The deadline doesn't pause for negotiations
None of these statutes stop running while you're negotiating with an adjuster, waiting to finish medical treatment, or deciding whether to hire a lawyer. Filing an insurance claim is not the same as filing a lawsuit, and it doesn't extend any of the deadlines above. Given how many different clocks can apply to a single crash, three years for the injury claim, two years for a wrongful death or a government-entity claim, 182 days for the notice that has to come before it, it's worth talking to a Colorado-licensed attorney well before any of them are close to running out. Our legal directory can help you find one.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I), Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
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C.R.S. 13-80-102, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
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C.R.S. 13-80-108, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
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C.R.S. 13-81-103, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
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C.R.S. 13-21-204, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
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C.R.S. 13-21-102.5, as amended by HB24-1472, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
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C.R.S. 24-10-109, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 24: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-24.pdf
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Colorado State Patrol, Online Accident Report Request: https://csp.colorado.gov/colorado-state-patrol-on-line-accident-report-request
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C.R.S. 10-4-609, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 10: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-10.pdf
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C.R.S. 13-80-107.5, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13: https://content.leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf