What to Do After a Car Accident in Illinois

Illinois runs on an at-fault system with a two-year filing deadline and a 51% comparative-fault bar. Here is what actually applies after a crash, from insurance minimums to dram shop caps, cited to the statutes.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jul 12, 2026
6 min read

What to do after a car accident in Illinois

An Illinois crash is not a rare event. Chicago alone logged 109,112 reported crashes in 2025, down slightly from 112,055 the year before,1 and another 9,461 in January 2026.2 If you were just in one, the steps below are the ones that actually change how your claim turns out here, because Illinois has its own deadlines, its own fault rule, and insurance minimums that most people overestimate.

Illinois is an at-fault state. The driver who caused the crash, and their insurer, is responsible for the damage. Illinois does not use a no-fault system, so what you do in the days after the crash directly affects what you can recover.

Right after the crash

Get to safety, call 911, and let police document the scene. One recent change trips up a lot of older advice: under Public Act 102-0560, drivers in Illinois no longer fill out an SR1B Motorist Report and mail it to the Illinois Department of Transportation.3 The investigating officer files the crash report now. (The only drivers who still self-report are employees who crashed a state vehicle.)3 That makes the officer's report the backbone of your claim, so make sure police respond and record the other driver's information. You can order the official report afterward through the Illinois State Police.4 Our Illinois crash reports page walks through how.

Photograph the vehicles and the road, collect the other driver's insurance details and plate, and get names and numbers for any witnesses before they leave. If you feel any pain, see a doctor the same day. A gap between the crash and your first treatment is the first thing an adjuster uses to argue you weren't really hurt.

The deadline that ends your claim

You generally have two years from the crash date to file a personal injury lawsuit in Illinois.5 Once that runs out, the court will dismiss the case regardless of how clearly the other driver was at fault. The claim for your vehicle and other property gets a longer window, five years.6

Two exceptions shorten the injury clock sharply. When a unit of local government is involved (a city bus, a police car, a poorly maintained road), tighter notice and filing rules apply, often as short as one year. And if you're pursuing the bar or store that over-served a drunk driver, the Dram Shop Act bars the claim unless you file within one year.7 These run out faster than people expect, so don't wait to get advice.

Fault is shared, up to a point

Illinois follows modified comparative negligence. Your award is reduced by your share of the blame, and if you're found more than 50% at fault, you recover nothing at all.8 Say a jury values your losses at $100,000 but finds you 20% responsible; you collect $80,000. Cross to 51% and you get zero.9 That threshold is exactly why insurers work so hard to pin part of the blame on you. The police report, your photos, and independent witnesses are what keep you on the right side of that line.

Insurance: what drivers must carry, and what they don't

Every Illinois driver has to carry liability coverage of at least $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for bodily injury, plus $20,000 for property damage, written as 25/50/20.10 Those figures haven't changed since January 1, 2015, and they're low enough that a single serious injury can exhaust them.10

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage fills that gap, and Illinois requires it. Every auto policy must include uninsured-motorist bodily injury coverage matching the 25/50 limits, and insurers must offer underinsured coverage and uninsured-motorist property damage as well.11 When the driver who hit you carried nothing or too little, this coverage is often what actually pays your bills.

What Illinois does not have is Personal Injury Protection. There's no PIP mandate, and no statute forces insurers to even offer MedPay.12 Your own crash bills get paid by your health insurance, by optional MedPay if you bought it, or out of the eventual settlement with the at-fault driver. Nothing pays your emergency room visit automatically, so plan around that.

What you can recover, and what isn't capped

Illinois does not cap damages in ordinary car-crash or wrongful-death cases. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the legislature's damage caps in Best v. Taylor Machine Works (1997) and struck them down again in Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital (2010),13 so there is no ceiling on pain-and-suffering or other non-economic damages in a car case. Punitive damages are available in serious cases, and since a 2023 amendment they can be sought in wrongful-death claims too, with exceptions for medical and legal malpractice defendants and for government bodies.14

If your car was repaired but is now worth less because it carries an accident history, that lost value is a separate claim in Illinois. Our Illinois diminished value page covers how to document and pursue it.

Phones and alcohol change everything

Illinois bans handheld phone use while driving, including calls, texting, video, and social media, under 625 ILCS 5/12-610.2.15 It's a primary offense, so an officer can stop a driver for that alone. Fines start at $75 and climb to $150 for repeat offenses, but the consequences escalate when a distracted driver causes harm: a violation causing great bodily harm is a Class A misdemeanor, and one causing a death is a Class 4 felony.15 If the driver who hit you was holding a phone, that citation is strong evidence of negligence.

Drunk-driving crashes open a second door. Illinois' Dram Shop Act lets you pursue the bar or retailer whose sale caused a driver's intoxication.7 That recovery is capped and re-indexed for inflation every January 20. For judgments on or after January 20, 2026, the limit is $90,411.55 for each injured person and $110,503.00 for loss of means of support or society.16 Keep the one-year deadline in mind. Your claim against the drunk driver directly carries no such cap and can include punitive damages.

Weather is not an excuse

Winter drives a real share of Illinois crashes; Chicago's official climate normals show measurable snowfall across the cold months.17 Ice and snow don't relieve a driver of the duty to slow down and keep control. If road or visibility conditions played a role in your crash, note them in your own account while the details are fresh, because the other driver may try to blame the weather instead of their driving.

When to bring in a lawyer

A minor, property-only claim you can often handle yourself. Once there's a real injury, a fight over who was at fault, an uninsured driver, or a government or dram-shop defendant with a short clock, the rules above start to interact in ways that are expensive to get wrong. You can find an Illinois attorney through our legal directory.

This is general information about Illinois law, not legal advice for your specific situation.

Sources

  1. thatcarhitme.com, Chicago Year-over-Year Crash Report 2025 vs 2024. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/illinois/chicago/2025-annual-report

  2. thatcarhitme.com, Chicago Crash Report January 2026. https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/illinois/chicago/january-2026-report

  3. Illinois Department of Transportation, Crash Reporting for Motorists (Public Act 102-0560). https://idot.illinois.gov/transportation-system/local-transportation-partners/law-enforcement/reporting/crash-reporting/motorists.html

  4. Illinois State Police, Crash Reports. https://isp.illinois.gov/CrashReports

  5. 735 ILCS 5/13-202 (personal injury, 2 years). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/073500050K13-202.htm

  6. 735 ILCS 5/13-205 (property and other civil actions, 5 years). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/073500050K13-205.htm

  7. 235 ILCS 5/6-21, Illinois Liquor Control Act (Dram Shop; one-year limit and CPI-indexed caps). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/023500050K6-21.htm

  8. 735 ILCS 5/2-1116 (modified comparative fault; barred above 50%). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/073500050K2-1116.htm

  9. Illinois Department of Insurance, Comparative Negligence. https://idoi.illinois.gov/consumers/consumerinsurance/comparative-negligence.html

  10. 625 ILCS 5/7-203 (minimum liability limits, 25/50/20). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/062500050K7-203.htm

  11. 215 ILCS 5/143a (uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/021500050K143a.htm

  12. Illinois Department of Insurance, Auto Insurance Shopping Guide. https://idoi.illinois.gov/consumers/consumerinsurance/auto-insurance-shopping-guide.html

  13. Best v. Taylor Machine Works, 179 Ill. 2d 367 (1997). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2244731/best-v-taylor-mach-works/

  14. 740 ILCS 180/2, Illinois Wrongful Death Act (punitive damages; malpractice and government exceptions). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/074001800K2.htm

  15. 625 ILCS 5/12-610.2 (electronic communication devices while driving). https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/062500050K12-610.2.htm

  16. Illinois Office of the Comptroller, 2026 Dram Shop Liability Limits. https://illinoiscomptroller.gov/__media/sites/comptroller/assets/File/Agencies/resource-library/statutorily-required/DRAM%20SHOP%20LIABILITY%20LIMITS-2026.pdf

  17. NOAA / National Weather Service, Chicago Climate Normals 1991-2020. https://www.weather.gov/lot/chicago_normals

About This Guide

Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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