Death in a Car Accident: What a Family Should Do?

In the days following a fatal crash, families are asked to make decisions long before they have had time to grieve. There are funeral arrangements to make, hospital bills arriving in the mail, and calls from insurance adjusters asking questions about the crash. If you are trying to figure out what to do after a fatal car accident, start by ordering several certified copies of the death certificate, saving every receipt, declining to discuss the crash with any insurance company, and speaking with a New York wrongful death lawyer as soon as you are able.

In New York, no relative can simply file a wrongful death car accident lawsuit on their own. The law requires several steps before a claim can even begin, and each one is easier to manage with an attorney handling it. Greenspan & Greenspan Injury Lawyers helps families obtain the necessary court appointment, investigates the crash, and handles all communication with the insurance companies. Contact us for a consultation, and let our attorneys handle the legal work while you focus on your family.

What Are the First Steps That Protect the Claim?

Evidence in a fatal crash has a short shelf life. Businesses near an intersection often record over camera footage within days or weeks. A damaged vehicle may be sent to salvage, taking with it the event data recorder that logs speed and braking in the seconds before impact. Part of our work in the first days is sending preservation demands to anyone holding video, vehicle data, or phone records, and making sure the vehicles are available for inspection before they are repaired or scrapped. None of this has to wait for the court to appoint an estate representative. We can begin protecting the evidence while that appointment is underway.

Families can help in simple ways by:

• Keeping the funeral invoice,
• Saving the final hospital and ambulance bills,
• Collecting your loved one’s recent pay stubs and tax returns, and
• Writing down the names of anyone who stopped at the scene.

If the other driver’s insurer calls, you may decline a recorded statement and refer them to your attorney. Do not sign a release or cash a check before speaking with an attorney.

Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim, and Who Shares in It?

The answer to who can file a wrongful death claim is narrower in New York than many families expect. The wrongful death claim New York law creates does not belong to a spouse, parent, or child individually. Only the personal representative of the estate may bring it. If your loved one left a will, the executor named in it usually serves in this role. If they did not leave a will, the Surrogate’s Court appoints an administrator. Typically, priority is given to a surviving spouse, then to children, followed by parents, and finally siblings. In many wrongful death cases, the court issues “limited letters,” which authorize the representative to file the lawsuit but require court approval before any settlement is accepted or money is collected.

The representative sues on behalf of the decedent’s distributees, meaning the relatives who would inherit if there were no will. A spouse and children come first, along with grandchildren whose parent has died, and parents qualify only when there is no spouse or descendant. Any recovery is divided according to each person’s financial loss, not inheritance percentages. A six-year-old who would have depended on a parent for another 15 years may receive a larger share than an adult child with a home and career of their own.

The law also leaves people out. An unmarried partner of 20 years and a stepchild who was never adopted do not share in the recovery. A parent who abandoned or failed to support a child may be disqualified entirely.

Compensation for Death in a Car Accident: What Does the Law Count?

New York measures compensation for death in a car accident by “pecuniary injuries,” meaning the financial value of what the family lost. That includes the income and benefits your loved one would have provided over a lifetime, the value of household services, reasonable funeral expenses, and medical care connected to the fatal injuries. Interest runs on the award from the date of death, and punitive damages may be sought when the driver’s conduct was especially reckless.

The Value of Household Services

Household services are frequently undervalued. Some common examples include a:

• Father who handled school drop-offs,
• Mother that managed the family budget, or
• Grown daughter who may have driven an aging parent to dialysis three times a week.

Each of those tasks has a replacement cost that can be proven through testimony and economic analysis. Children may also recover for the loss of a parent’s guidance, which courts treat as a financial loss even though it is not measured in a paycheck.

What Is Not Counted?

What the law does not count is grief. New York does not allow families to recover for sorrow, mental anguish, or lost companionship in a wrongful death action. The Court of Appeals has held that recovery is confined to the pecuniary losses permitted by the statute. The Legislature has passed the Grieving Families Act four times to change this, and Governor Hochul vetoed each version, most recently in December 2025. As of this writing, a new version introduced in May 2026 has not become law.

How Does New York Law Handle Pain and Suffering?

The estate may also file a survival action for your loved one’s conscious pain and suffering between the time of the crash and their death, regardless of whether that period lasted minutes or weeks. Because the law allows recovery only for suffering your loved one was aware of, the claim often turns on what happened in those final moments. Ambulance run reports and emergency room notes recording that the patient was responsive or asking questions can become central evidence.

New York’s “serious injury” threshold, which limits pain and suffering claims in most motor vehicle cases, does not stand in the way, because death is itself one of the qualifying categories. The threshold still applies to anyone who survived the same crash. However, following changes to the law in May 2026 that removed the category known as the 90/180 rule, a spouse or child who was injured alongside your loved one and later recovered may now find it harder to bring a claim of their own. There is also a $100,000 cap on noneconomic damages for certain at-fault drivers, although the cap expressly excludes actions for injuries resulting in death.

How Do You Tell Your Loved One’s Side of the Crash?

In a wrongful death car accident case, the only person who knows what your loved one saw is gone, and defense lawyers know it. The surviving driver’s account often goes unchallenged unless someone reconstructs the crash from physical evidence such as skid marks, crush damage, vehicle data, and cell phone records.

Fault directly affects the recovery. New York reduces a wrongful death award by the decedent’s share of fault, so a finding that your loved one was 20% at fault reduces the award by 20%. There is a stricter rule for motor vehicle injury claims that bars recovery entirely when the injured person was more at fault than the defendants, but that rule applies by its terms to personal injury claims and does not mention wrongful death. The wrongful death claim continues to follow the traditional rule, which reduces rather than eliminates the family’s recovery.

Deadlines That Run While You Are Still Grieving

A wrongful death lawsuit must generally be filed within two years of the date of death. The survival claim follows the personal injury deadline and must generally be filed within three years of the accident. The two claims are usually brought together in one lawsuit.

The Role of No-Fault Insurance

Your loved one’s own no-fault policy may pay a $2,000 death benefit, along with medical bills and lost earnings that accrued before death. Written notice of that claim is generally due within 30 days of the accident, and a family member or attorney can send it without waiting for the court to appoint an estate representative. When the at-fault driver carries too little coverage, your loved one’s own underinsured motorist coverage may pay the difference, subject to prompt notice. Hit-and-run and uninsured driver claims have strict notice rules of their own.

Claims Against Public Entities

A claim against a city, town, county, or other public body follows its own timeline. Before filing suit, the family must serve a formal notice of claim; for a wrongful death claim, the 90-day service window begins when the court appoints the estate representative. The lawsuit itself must then be filed within two years of the date of death, not the date of the crash. That distinction gives families more time when a loved one survives in the hospital for days or weeks before passing.

Against a public body, the survival claim runs on a shorter schedule. Because New York treats it as a personal injury claim, its 90-day notice period generally begins on the date of the accident, and the lawsuit is generally due within one year and 90 days of the accident.

Letting Someone Else Carry the Legal Weight

When you have lost someone in a crash, figuring out what to do after a fatal car accident should not fall on your family. Your responsibility is to support each other. Our job is to manage the legal work, from preserving evidence to building the strongest case allowed by New York law.

Greenspan & Greenspan Injury Lawyers has stood with injured New Yorkers and grieving families for more than six decades. We believe a family’s claim should tell the full story of the person who is gone. Our purpose is to prove that story with evidence, so the law recognizes as much of your loss as it permits. Contact us today for a consultation about your family’s wrongful death claim.

Legal References Used to Inform This Page

To ensure the accuracy and clarity of this page, we referenced official legal and other resources during the content development process:

• Action by personal representative for wrongful act, neglect or default causing death of decedent, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 5-4.1 (2014).
• Amount of recovery, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 5-4.3 (2014).
• Distribution of damages recovered, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 5-4.4 (2014).
• Application to compromise action, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 5-4.6 ( 2022).
• Descent and distribution of a decedent’s estate, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 4-1.1 (2019).
• Disqualification of parent to take intestate share, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 4-1.4 (2014).
• Action for injury to person or property survives despite death, N.Y. Est. Powers & Trusts Law § 11-3.2(b) (2014).
• Limited and restrictive letters, N.Y. Surr. Ct. Proc. Act § 702 (2014).
• Definition, N.Y. Ins. Law § 5102 (d) (2026).
• Causes of action for personal injury, N.Y. Ins. Law § 5104 (a) and (d) (2026).
• Damages recoverable when contributory negligence or assumption of risk is established, N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 1411(b) (2026).
• Regulations Implementing the Comprehensive Motor Vehicle Insurance Reparations Act, 11 N.Y.C.R.R. § 65-1.1.
• Actions commenced within three years, N.Y. C.P.L.R. §214(5) (2022).
• Notice of claim, N.Y. Gen. Mun. Law § 50-e (2026).
• Presentation of tort claims; commencement of actions, N.Y. Gen. Mun. Law § 50-i (2026).
• Rented or leased motor vehicle safety and responsibility, 49 U.S.C. § 30106.
• Liability insurance; standard provisions; right of injured person, N.Y. Ins. Law § 3420 (f) (2026).
• Notice of claim, N.Y. Ins. Law § 5208 (2014).
• Liff v. Schildkrout, 49 N.Y.2d 622 (1980).
• Grieving Families Act, S4423/A6063 (2025).