How to find the other driver’s insurance company after an accident: what ten states make them hand over, and the official records route when they did not

Four of the ten state statutes checked here make the other driver give you the name of their insurer at the scene: Texas, Washington, Oregon and California. Minnesota makes them give it on request within 72 hours. In Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia and Maryland the exchange statute asks only for a name, an address and a registration number. If the car is New York-registered, New York DMV will search its records for $10 and send back the insurer and the policy number, once you supply a crash report and the matching vehicle and registrant details.

Having an exchange statute does not mean it reaches the person who needs the insurer’s name. Michigan’s MCL 257.328 does require a driver to produce proof of insurance, but the person it runs to is a police officer, on request, and the section says it does not apply to a vehicle registered in another state or country. A Michigan driver who hands over a name, an address and a plate has done everything the exchange statute, MCL 257.619, asks, and the insurer’s name has to come from some other channel. California shows the opposite trap: its DMV form says in print that law enforcement reports cannot be used to open a file, so a driver who relied on the police report alone can wait 30 days and pay $20 for a reply that says no file exists.

Estimates and published averages, not a quote. Not insurance advice. State rules and insurer rules vary. Confirm requirements with your state insurance regulator or a licensed agent in your state.

Ten exchange statutes, sorted by what the other driver must give you

The exchange statute is the first channel, and the only one that is free and works on the spot. The ten below fall into three groups, and the group your crash falls in decides whether a driver who says nothing about insurance has broken the law.

In the first four rows, refusing to name the insurer is a violation in itself. Texas asks only for the insurer’s name. Washington asks for the company and the policy number. Oregon goes furthest, adding the carrier’s phone number in ORS 811.700, which is the detail that lets you open a claim from the roadside. Minnesota’s row is the only one that sets a clock. The statute ties the duty to the 72 hours after the accident, so make the request inside that window and make it in writing, to the address the driver gave you.

In the last five rows, a driver can decline to tell you who insures the car and still have complied. Florida is the subtle case. Section 316.062 lists only the name, the address and the registration number. Section 316.066 is where insurance appears: each party must give the officer proof of insurance, the officer’s report must list the insurers’ names, and a party who does not supply it commits a noncriminal infraction unless the officer decides that injuries or other special circumstances made it impossible at the time. In Florida the insurer therefore reaches you through a report and not through the driver; the Florida rules page covers the state’s coverage requirements around that.

The penalty column shows how unevenly the legislatures treat a refusal. California’s is a fine of up to $250. Maryland’s tops out at two months or $500. Texas grades by damage, with the line at $200. Virginia grades by damage too, and above $1,000 the section makes a violation a Class 5 felony. That spread is one reason to put the request in front of an officer rather than to argue it with the driver, and it is also why a driver who has read the statute may say nothing about insurance in a state whose statute does not ask.

Why a plate number alone gets you nothing, and what the federal privacy law says

A plate number feels like the whole answer, because the state knows who owns the car. The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act is the reason the state will not simply tell you. Section 2721(a) of Title 18 bars a state motor vehicle department from knowingly disclosing personal information from a motor vehicle record except as subsection (b) allows. Subsection (b) is a list of permitted uses. Two matter after a crash. Paragraph (b)(4) covers use in connection with a civil, criminal, administrative or arbitral proceeding, including “investigation in anticipation of litigation.” Paragraph (b)(6) covers use by an insurer or insurance support organization, or a self-insured entity and its agents or contractors, “in connection with claims investigation activities, antifraud activities, rating or underwriting.”

The permission in (b)(6) belongs to insurers, not to individuals. The Act gives an individual no right to a lookup, so every state route below rests on state law instead: California’s form cites Vehicle Code 16005, which limits accident information to people with a proper interest in the crash, and New York’s page limits the search to a person who supplies a crash report and the matching vehicle and registrant details. The definition in 2725(3) says personal information “does not include information on vehicular accidents, driving violations, and driver’s status,” so the federal Act is not what keeps crash reports closed; the state statutes in the sections below do that. The state statutes sometimes borrow the federal list. Florida’s 316.066(2)(f) lets an agency release a crash report, 60 days after it is filed, to anyone eligible under that section or with a permissible use under 18 U.S.C. 2721(b).

In practice, the claims staff at an insurer can lawfully use motor vehicle records for claims investigation under (b)(6). Whether your own insurer will run that search on your behalf is its practice, not a legal right you hold, so ask the adjuster whether it will, and give it the plate, the date, the place and the report number when you do. Treat that as a free first request, then use the state channels below if the answer is no or slow.

Where each official channel starts, what it costs and what it states about time

New York, California and Virginia run a DMV insurance search, and New York also sells the crash report that the search needs. Texas, Florida, Washington, Illinois and Minnesota run through a crash report, where the report carries the insurer’s name or the statute lets the state disclose it.

Of the routes in the table, only the three DMV searches are set up to answer who insured a particular vehicle on a particular date, and each begins with a crash report filed by someone. The police-report routes depend on what the officer recorded at the scene, and a report cannot hold what nobody gave the officer.

The lowest printed fee is $5, for a State Police copy in Illinois and a report copy in Minnesota. The highest single fee is California’s $20 per item. Texas’s $6, Virginia’s $8, New York’s $10 and Washington’s $10.50 sit between them. New York is the one state where the total depends on the path, which the next section works out.

New York: a free code lookup, a $10 search, and the reports that feed them

New York has the most complete official route of the ten states, and the DMV page for it is plain about the order. If you have been in a crash with a vehicle registered in New York, the quickest way to get insurance information, in the DMV’s words, is to search the insurance company code list on the Department of Financial Services website. The search is free and shows results immediately. The three-digit code is printed on the accident report.

The list is a real document, not a gesture. It carries 426 three-digit codes, counted on 2026-11-03, and ten of them are marked with asterisks as carriers no longer authorized to issue auto policies in New York. Each row gives the NAIC number, the company name, a contact phone and a street address. A code such as 011 resolves to a named company with a phone number and a mailing address, which is enough to open a claim. The DFS page explains that the codes are used to monitor the insurance status of vehicles registered in the state and to identify companies on police accident reports.

When you do not have a report with a code on it, the DMV runs the search itself, for registered New York vehicles only. The FS-25 form asks for the crash date, the year and make of the vehicle, the plate number and the registrant’s name, and the reply form is blunt: the year, make, plate number and registrant must all match, or the request comes back. A plate alone is not enough, and neither is a name. The request must also carry a copy of the police crash report, form MV-104P, or if there is none, the motorist’s own Report of Motor Vehicle Crash, form MV-104, which can also be submitted through the DMV’s online motorist portal. The search fee is $10, which the form says is required by law.

The DMV’s reply has several outcomes, and the form lists them. If records show insurance in force on the crash date, DMV sends the company name and the policy number and tells you to contact the company. If the registrant’s vehicle is registered in another state, DMV tells you to contact that state. If the information is past its retention period and purged, or the vehicle belongs to a government agency exempt from the filing requirement (insurance code 994), you are told that too. If the crash was a hit-and-run, the DMV needs a police report that names the vehicle’s year, make and registrant before it can process anything. And a plate number that matches no record is returned as such.

The uninsured branch matters just as much. If the company you contact says the vehicle was not insured that day, DMV’s page tells you to get a denial-of-insurance letter on the company’s letterhead, specifically denying coverage on the date of the crash. Send that letter, a copy of the report and a cover letter to the Insurance Services Bureau. DMV can revoke the driver’s license and act against the registrant. The FS-25 reply box adds that when a denial letter comes with the request, no fee is due: the $10 is returned, and the request goes to the Bureau, which notifies you within 90 days.

Two details change the plan. A motorist report enters the DMV system at least 60 days after the crash, so for a minor crash with no officer the report you hold is your own MV-104, which the DMV page accepts when there is no police report. And New York’s no-fault system, with its own deadlines for hit-and-run and uninsured injury claims, is laid out in the New York no-fault guide; the DMV route finds the insurer, while the no-fault rules decide who pays your medical bills first.

California: the DMV has insurance information only after someone filed an SR 1

California gives drivers a statute that names the insurer at the scene, in Vehicle Code 16025, and a DMV form for the case where that did not happen. The form is the SR 19C, the Financial Responsibility Information Request. It offers three items per request: insurance information from the file, an uninsured motorist certification, or a photocopy of the SR 1 report. Access is limited under Vehicle Code 16005 to people with a proper interest, and the instructions list them: a driver, a parent, employer or legal guardian, authorized representatives, an injured party, an owner of vehicle or property damaged in the crash, courts and law enforcement. You declare your interest under penalty of perjury.

The form’s reply boxes are a map of how this can fail. The DMV can answer that the other person is not named in its file, that no SR 1 was filed, that the person has not submitted evidence of liability insurance for the date, or that the vehicle belonged to an authorized self-insurer or a cash deposit certificate holder. Several boxes are specific to California. If the SR 1 reports no damage over $1,000 ($750 for crashes before January 1, 2017) and no injury, the crash is outside the Financial Responsibility Law. If the SR 1 arrived more than a year after the crash, the request cannot be processed. Files are purged on a 48-month schedule. If the driver gave the DMV insurance information or was driving an employer’s vehicle, the department will not ask the registered owner or employer. If the vehicle was reported as parked, insurance information was not requested.

The reply box that matters most to a driver who only has a police report is a short one: law enforcement accident reports cannot be used as the basis for establishing an FR file, and an SR 1 must be filed. The same form says that the DMV does not keep insurance on file for every California-registered vehicle; insurance information is requested when an SR 1 arrives after a reportable crash. So the first step in California is not the SR 19C but the SR 1, with its damage line and deadline, which the DMV report guide covers.

The last row is the practical lesson. A request that fails for want of an SR 1 costs another $20 to resubmit, and the form allows 30 days for each pass. Getting the SR 1 on file first, or confirming that the other driver filed one, takes about a month off the worst case. And since the form asks for the other person’s name, address, license number and plate, the photographs taken at the scene are worth more than they look: a clear picture of a plate and of a license (with the other driver’s consent) is the difference between a request the DMV can match and one it returns.

Virginia: the DMV writes to the other owner for you

Virginia’s route is built around a different idea. The DMV keeps the official record of every reportable crash, and a driver, vehicle owner or representative reports a crash by submitting an accident report, form FR200, with the Information Request Form CRD-93 and $8.00. The page lists mail, fax (with a payment authorization, form DMS 004) and a customer service center, and prints no processing time.

The insurance step is the unusual one. On the report, the person filing may say there is reason to believe the other vehicle was uninsured. DMV then sends a request for insurance information to the other vehicle’s owner. If the owner fails to respond, or turns out to have no insurance, DMV issues an order of suspension against the owner. The person who filed can ask DMV for the insurance information it obtained, using the CRD-93 and the fee. In other words, Virginia’s lookup is a by-product of an enforcement step: the state asks the owner to prove coverage, and you receive what the owner proved.

That design suits a driver who has the other vehicle’s details but no insurer. It does not help a driver who has nothing: the statute behind it, 46.2-894, asks the other driver only for a name, an address, a license number and a registration number, so the plate and the owner’s identity are the starting points. The statute also treats leaving without giving that information as serious. A violation is a Class 5 felony where there is injury or more than $1,000 of property damage, and a Class 1 misdemeanor at $1,000 or less.

Police reports in Texas, Florida, Washington, Illinois and Minnesota: who gets the full copy, and when

In these five states the route runs through a crash report, and each state decides who gets the full version. The differences decide whether the report is a tool or a dead end.

Texas is the clearest. Section 550.065(c) releases the full collision report on written request and payment to a list of people with a direct or proper interest (the list also takes in licensed broadcasters and qualifying newspapers): any person involved, the owner of a vehicle or property damaged in the collision, a driver’s employer, parent or guardian, an insurer that covers a vehicle or a person involved, and the representatives of those people. Anyone else can ask for a redacted report under (c-1), and the redaction list in (f)(2) removes the names of every person in the report, license numbers, addresses, license plates, “the name of any insurance company listed as a provider of financial responsibility” and “the number of any insurance policy.” A neighbor or a curious stranger gets a report with the insurer blanked out. You get the full report only if you fall within the list. The fee is $6, with $2 more for certification.

A Texas report exists only if an officer wrote one, and the officer’s duty in 550.062 starts at injury, death, or damage to any one person’s property of $1,000 or more. A $700 parking-lot scrape may leave no report at all, and then the exchange statute is the only source. The duty to call the police is narrower than many drivers think: 550.026 requires immediate notice only for injury or death, or damage that leaves a vehicle unable to be normally and safely driven. The Texas laws guide has the rest of the state’s accident rules, and the parking lot fault guide covers the lot-specific questions.

Florida takes the opposite approach on timing. Crash reports that reveal identities or addresses are confidential for 60 days after filing, but the statute lets an agency release them at once to the parties, their legal representatives, their licensed insurance agents, their insurers and companies under contract with those insurers. Every request needs identification and a sworn statement, per report, that the information will not be used for commercial solicitation of accident victims. The confidentiality provision is set to repeal on October 2, 2027 unless the Legislature reenacts it, so a driver reading this after that date should confirm the current text.

Washington is the most specific about time. The State Patrol’s page says officers have 2 to 4 weeks to finish an investigation and have it approved, that a report may be available much sooner, and that a no-record result after weeks can mean the officer judged the damage to be under $1,000 and sent the drivers to file civilian reports. Parties entitled to the report receive a non-redacted copy; other requesters get a redacted copy under the Public Records Act. The fee is $10.50, a certified copy takes 5 to 7 business days, and the patrol keeps reports for 10 years. RCW 46.52.080 requires officers to disclose names and addresses, plate numbers, vehicle descriptions and the date, time and place to a person with a proper interest, including an attorney or an insurer; the list does not name the insurer, which is why the full copy matters.

Illinois and Minnesota add two rules that are easy to miss. In Illinois, 625 ILCS 5/11-412(a) makes crash reports confidential for the agency’s use, but says the state agency that holds them may disclose the identity of a person involved when it is not otherwise known and “shall disclose the identity of the insurance carrier, if any, upon demand.” The statute does not say who may demand or how, so write to the agency, name the crash date and the vehicle, and cite the section. Copies from the State Police cost $5, or $20 when a reconstruction officer or team investigated. In Minnesota, subdivision 13 requires the commissioner, a full-service provider or a law enforcement agency to release the report on written request to people involved, people injured in person or property, their lawyers and the representatives of their insurers, with a $5 fee charged by the commissioner or a full-service provider; disclosing a report outside those rules is a misdemeanor.

If the other driver refuses, or the car has no insurance

A refusal at the scene is different from a failure later, and the statutes treat them differently. In the four states that require the insurer’s name, a driver who will not give it has broken the exchange statute in front of you. Say so calmly, call the police if an officer is not already there, and photograph the plate, the car and the driver’s license if the driver will show it. In the other states, the driver may be within the statute, and the officer’s report is where an insurer’s name is most likely to appear. Florida’s rule that the report must list the insurers is the clearest example.

Once the driver has gone, the question becomes what the state will do with a plate number. In New York, the DMV will search its records, but only for a vehicle registered there, and only if the year, make, plate and registrant match. In California, the DMV needs an SR 1 and will tell you whether the other person filed one. In Virginia, the DMV asks the other owner to prove coverage. In the other states in the table, a police report is the source, and a driver who left a damage-only crash may never be identified at all, which is the situation the hit-and-run guide works through, coverage by coverage.

A driver who is found and uninsured creates two separate tracks. The enforcement track is the state’s: New York can revoke the license and act against the registrant after the insurer’s denial letter reaches the Insurance Services Bureau, California’s form SR 19C offers an uninsured motorist certification for $20, and Virginia suspends an owner who does not respond. The recovery track is yours. The Texas Department of Insurance says uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage pays when you are hit by someone who had no insurance or too little, and in a hit-and-run; insurers must offer it, and you must reject it in writing if you do not want it. A deductible applies to those claims, where it does not apply to a claim against another driver’s insurer. The uninsured motorist guide compares how the coverage is sold, and the state-by-state estimates of uninsured drivers show how likely the situation is where you live.

There is also the driver who gives a false answer: a policy that lapsed, an insurer’s name that does not match, a card that belongs to a different car. The official routes catch this in different ways. New York’s search returns the insurance on file for that registrant, plate and date, and the insurer’s denial letter, which the DMV page asks for by name, turns a bad card into a revocation file.

Eight situations and the first channel for each

The choice of route depends on three facts: what the other driver gave you, where the vehicle is registered, and whether a report exists. The table pairs each common situation with the first channel and the fallback.

At the scene: plate, card and report number, in that order

The plate, the card and the report number are the three items later routes depend on, so the list runs in the order that secures them.

1. Ask for the insurer’s name and the policy number, in so many words, and ask to photograph the insurance card. In Texas, Washington, Oregon and California the statute covers the insurer’s name; in the other states you are asking for something the driver may decline.
2. Photograph the plate, the front and the rear of both cars, the driver’s license if the driver agrees, and the scene. These are the facts every DMV route above asks for: New York needs the plate and the registrant’s name, California needs the name, address, license number and plate.
3. Write down the date, the place, the time and the other driver’s name as given. California’s SR 19C asks for the accident date and the city; Virginia’s FR200 and New York’s FS-25 ask for the crash date.
4. If anyone is hurt, or a car cannot be driven, call the police. In Texas that call is required by 550.026; in the other states, ask the responding officer to record each insurer. Get the report number before you leave.
5. Tell your own insurer the same day, and give it the report number, the plate and the other driver’s details. Ask whether it will search for the other vehicle’s insurer under its claims-investigation access.
6. File whatever state report your state requires. A New York motorist report (MV-104) and a California SR 1 are not only compliance steps; each is a document the later DMV search needs. The DMV report guide has the dollar lines and deadlines for twelve states.
7. Diary the dates the sources print: 72 hours in Minnesota, 14, 30 or 60 days for New York report availability, 2 to 4 weeks in Washington, 30 days on the California form, and 60 days for the Florida confidentiality window.
8. Order the report or file the DMV request once the stated waiting period has passed, and keep the receipts: the $10, $20, $10.50 or $8 you pay is part of the cost of your claim, and the denial letters, if any, are the documents a state agency asks for next.

A claim against someone else’s insurer starts on a different footing

Finding the insurer is the start of a third-party claim, and a third-party claim differs from the first-party claim on your own policy. The Illinois Department of Insurance describes the difference this way: in a first-party claim you have a direct contract that requires your insurer to meet the policy’s conditions, but in a third-party claim you have no contract with the other driver’s insurer, and its primary obligation is to its own policyholder. The Department adds that the insurer will investigate, offer a settlement if it finds its insured legally responsible, and in most cases will not settle until you sign a release.

A few of the Illinois rules are worth noting because they show what a regulator expects of the insurer you have just found. Insurance law there requires a company to provide the forms needed to present a claim within 15 working days of a request. The administrative code requires a reasonable written explanation of delay on any property damage liability claim left open longer than 60 days from the date it was reported. Other states set their own clocks, compared in the claim timeline guide, and a claim that goes badly follows the escalation steps in the claim denied guide.

On the first call, ask for a claim number, the adjuster’s name and a written acknowledgment, and ask whether the policy was in force on the crash date. If the answer is no, you are in the uninsured track: get the denial in writing, on letterhead, specifically for that date, because the New York DMV page asks for exactly that and other agencies will want the same proof. If the answer is yes, give the facts without guessing at fault percentages; who pays what depends on how fault is split, which the comparative negligence guide sets out. And before you decide whether to run the repair through your own policy while the other insurer is still deciding, the break-even worksheet and the guide to getting your deductible back show what each route costs. More guides on injury claims and fault are collected in the fault and injury section.

Questions readers ask

If the insurer turns out not to exist, the estimates of uninsured drivers in each state show how likely that is where you live, and which uninsured motorist rule applies to you.