Hit-and-Run and Uninsured Motorist Claims in Rochester, NY: What to Do in the First 72 Hours

The other driver is gone. Maybe you came out of Wegmans on East Avenue and found your quarter panel caved in and no note. Maybe someone ran the light on Dewey Avenue, tagged your front end, and kept going while you were still registering what happened. Maybe it was 10:30 at night on the Lake Ontario State Parkway and you watched a car fishtail into you, overcorrect, and disappear into the dark.

What happens next is not obvious, and the window for protecting your claim is shorter than most people realize. New York has specific procedural requirements for hit-and-run and uninsured motorist claims, and missing them — by hours, not weeks — can eliminate coverage you paid for.

Here is what to do, in order, in the first 72 hours.

The 24-hour police report requirement

In New York, an uninsured motorist claim arising from a physical contact hit-and-run requires a police report filed within 24 hours of the incident, or as soon as reasonably possible. This is not a courtesy — it is a contractual condition of your UM coverage under New York's standard insurance policy form.

If you are in Rochester:

• Rochester city streets: Report to the Rochester Police Department online portal or by calling the non-emergency line (not 911 unless injuries are involved and the scene is active). The RPD non-emergency dispatch handles property-damage-only hit-and-run reports.
• Monroe County roads outside city limits: File with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
• State routes and expressways (I-490, I-590, Route 104): File with the New York State Police, Troop E (Canandaigua dispatch covers Monroe County).

Get a report number. Write it down. This number goes on your insurance claim form and is required for any MVAIC application. A police report filed 72 hours after the incident is better than none — insurance carriers may accept late reports with a documented explanation — but a report filed within 24 hours eliminates that argument entirely.

If the incident happened in a private parking lot and no public road was involved, the police report requirement varies. Most carriers still require a report as a practical matter, and filing one (even for a parking-lot incident) documents the event date and your account of what happened. File regardless.

What "physical contact" means under New York UM law

New York's uninsured motorist framework includes a physical contact requirement for hit-and-run claims. Under New York Insurance Law §3420 and the standard UM endorsement language, the hit-and-run vehicle must have made actual physical contact with your vehicle for you to access UM property damage coverage through your own insurer.

This requirement eliminates fraudulent "phantom vehicle" claims — where a driver swerves to avoid a vehicle that may or may not have existed and damages their own car in the resulting maneuver. The physical contact rule means you need to show that the other vehicle actually touched yours.

The practical standard in a parking-lot hit-and-run is not difficult to meet: paint transfer, contact marks, or body damage consistent with vehicle-to-vehicle impact satisfies it. A body shop's written damage assessment documenting impact direction and contact evidence becomes your physical-contact proof when the police report has no witness information and the at-fault driver is never identified.

What doesn't satisfy the physical contact rule: running off the road because a vehicle cut you off without making contact, or damage you attribute to a phantom vehicle that never touched your car. In those cases, the claim routes through your collision coverage (subject to your deductible), not your UM coverage.

Uninsured motorist coverage vs collision coverage: which one applies

Rochester drivers commonly have both collision coverage and uninsured motorist (UM) coverage on their policy, without fully understanding the difference in how they trigger.

Collision coverage pays for damage to your vehicle when you collide with another vehicle or object, regardless of fault. You file a first-party claim with your own insurer, pay your deductible, and the carrier pays the repair. It doesn't matter if the other driver is insured, uninsured, or unknown. Your deductible applies.

Uninsured motorist property damage coverage (UMPD) specifically covers damage caused by an uninsured driver. In New York, UMPD coverage typically has a lower deductible than collision — often $250 vs a typical collision deductible of $500–$1,000. The benefit of routing a hit-and-run through UM rather than collision (when you can) is the lower deductible.

The tradeoff: UM claims can carry an at-fault flag in some carriers' claims scoring, while collision claims are more routinely neutral for premium impact. Discuss with your carrier whether a UM claim vs a collision claim affects your premium before choosing the routing.

Comprehensive coverage covers non-collision events: theft, vandalism, fire, flood, hail, falling objects, animal strikes. A hit-and-run is a collision event, not a comprehensive event. Routing a hit-and-run through comprehensive is incorrect and will be flagged by the adjuster.

What happens when the at-fault driver has no insurance

New York is a mandatory-insurance state. Every registered vehicle is required to carry minimum liability coverage: $25,000/$50,000 bodily injury, $10,000 property damage. Roughly 5–6% of New York drivers are uninsured at any given time despite the mandate. In Monroe County, enforcement visibility varies by area — uninsured vehicles operate regularly on city streets.

When you are struck by an identified but uninsured driver:

1. File a police report immediately — the same requirement applies as for hit-and-run.
2. Get the at-fault driver's information — name, address, driver's license number, vehicle registration. Even if they have no insurance, their identity lets you pursue a property damage subrogation claim against them personally.
3. File with your own UM coverage — your insurer pays for your repair (up to your UM limits, less deductible), then subrogates against the uninsured driver. Your insurer does the collections work; your car gets repaired.
4. Do not accept cash on the spot — an uninsured driver offering to settle the damage in cash is an understandable impulse on their part but a terrible deal for you. You don't know the full damage scope until the car is torn down. A bumper that looks like $600 of damage can have $2,400 of sensor, foam, and bracket damage behind it.

The uninsured driver's personal liability for the damage doesn't go away when you collect from your UM coverage. Your insurer's subrogation rights against them are enforceable — whether they can actually collect is a different question, but the legal obligation remains.

MVAIC: New York's insurer of last resort

New York operates the Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation (MVAIC), a statutory fund established under New York Insurance Law §5201 to provide compensation to accident victims who cannot collect from an insured at-fault party. MVAIC covers:

• Bodily injury from uninsured or hit-and-run drivers
• In limited circumstances, property damage claims

MVAIC is the backstop for drivers who do not have UM coverage on their own policy and are hit by an uninsured or unknown driver. It is not a substitute for UM coverage — MVAIC has lower limits, more procedural requirements, and a longer processing timeline than a standard UM claim. But it exists specifically because New York recognized that mandatory-insurance laws don't actually get 100% compliance, and victims shouldn't bear the full loss.

For property damage specifically, MVAIC covers situations where the victim has no collision or UM coverage of their own. The minimum property damage available through MVAIC is $10,000 — which covers most single-vehicle collision repairs in Rochester at current market rates — but the process requires:

• A filed police report (the 24-hour requirement applies here too)
• A written letter to MVAIC within 90 days of the accident (strict deadline)
• Evidence that you have made reasonable efforts to identify the at-fault vehicle
• A notarized application form (Form A or Form B depending on whether you carry your own policy)

The 90-day MVAIC filing deadline is the one that catches people. Most drivers who have a hit-and-run, deal with their car, and think about the legal side two months later find the window open. Most drivers who let it go past three months have lost MVAIC as an option for property damage. If you have no UM coverage and no collision coverage, file with MVAIC immediately after the police report.

Getting your car to a shop while the claim is open

You don't have to wait for the insurance company to authorize repairs before bringing your car to a body shop. You can bring the car in for a written estimate immediately — and you should, because the estimate is documentation of the damage at the time of the incident.

When you bring the car in under a hit-and-run or UM claim:

1. The shop writes a preliminary estimate and photographs the damage thoroughly.
2. You provide the police report number and the claim number (once you've opened it with your carrier).
3. The shop communicates with the adjuster directly on the scope and estimate — the same supplement process as any other claim.
4. Repairs proceed once authorization is issued. Timeline depends on parts availability and carrier authorization speed.

On a UM claim where the carrier's initial estimate arrives low — common on parking-lot hit-and-runs where the adjuster writes from photos and misses the contact marks that indicate sensor involvement — the supplement process works the same way it does on a standard collision claim. The shop documents, submits, and the carrier approves. Your deductible doesn't change.

If you're dealing with a hit-and-run on a vehicle you park at the University of Rochester, Strong Memorial, or in Brighton's commercial corridors — where parking-lot incidents are highest in our service area — Brighton Collision on Monroe Avenue processes the paperwork with your carrier directly, including the police report documentation step. For Greece and the northwest suburbs, Greco Collision on Dewey Avenue has been handling UM and hit-and-run claims for 30 years and is familiar with the RPD filing process.

Rental coverage on a hit-and-run or UM claim

Rental coverage on a UM claim works the same way as rental coverage on a standard collision claim: if you carry rental reimbursement coverage on your policy, your carrier provides a daily rental allowance while your car is being repaired. The shop can coordinate with Enterprise or Hertz to have the rental delivered, as with any covered claim.

The difference from a third-party claim (where the at-fault driver's liability coverage pays for your rental) is that there is no at-fault party's carrier to bill. The rental comes entirely through your own coverage. If you don't carry rental reimbursement, you're paying for the rental out-of-pocket regardless of whether the at-fault driver was uninsured or unknown.

This is worth knowing before an incident happens: rental reimbursement coverage costs $15–$40 per year. On a claim where your car is in the shop for two weeks, it's the difference between paying $1,000+ in rental fees out of pocket and paying nothing.

The first call after the police report

Once you've filed the police report and have a report number, the sequence is: call your insurer to open the claim, then call a body shop to get the car in for a preliminary estimate and documentation photos. Do both within 24 hours of the incident.

The collision repair page walks through what happens after the estimate is in — how the supplement process works, what authorization timing looks like, and what your deductible covers. For drivers in Webster or Fairport who aren't sure whether to use collision coverage or UM coverage on a specific incident, the Fairport service area page has contact details for scheduling a same-day estimate appointment.

Send damage photos now. Don't wait until the claim is authorized — the damage documentation taken immediately after the incident is the strongest evidence of the impact contact, the force involved, and the scope of what needs repair.