The first few minutes after a crash on a Houma road can feel completely disorienting. Your pulse is up, the other driver is getting out of their car, and you’re trying to remember what you’re supposed to do. Most people in that moment rely on what they think they know about Louisiana’s insurance and fault rules, but both of those rules changed in the last two years, and the version most people have in their heads no longer applies.
Louisiana changed its filing deadline for car accident injury claims, overhauled its fault system at the start of 2026, and updated its rules for uninsured drivers in August 2025. Waitz & Downer has been representing South Louisiana drivers since 1971. We know the law, including these recent updates, and we know how to protect your claim from the start. What you do in the first hours matters more than most people realize. Here’s a practical guide for anyone who's been involved in a motor vehicle accident in Terrebonne Parish.
Make Sure You're Safe & Get Checked Out First
If the vehicles are drivable and it’s safe to do so, move them out of the travel lane and turn on your hazard lights. Leaving a disabled vehicle in a live lane creates a second hazard, and Houma’s busier corridors, like Martin Luther King Boulevard or Highway 24, don’t give other drivers much reaction time.
Once you’re clear of traffic, call 911, even if you feel fine. Adrenaline is a powerful mask. Whiplash, concussion, and internal injuries may not produce obvious symptoms until hours or even days after a crash. Refusing emergency care at the scene, or waiting several days before seeing a doctor, creates gaps in your medical record that an insurance adjuster can use to argue the injuries weren’t serious or weren’t caused by the crash.
Report the Crash to the Right Agency
Louisiana law under La. R.S. 32:398 requires drivers to immediately report any crash involving injury, death, or property damage over $500 to law enforcement. In Terrebonne Parish, which agency responds depends entirely on where the crash happened.
- Inside Houma’s city limits: The Houma Police Department investigates the crash and generates the official report.
- In unincorporated Terrebonne Parish: The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office takes jurisdiction, so crashes on rural parish roads, unincorporated subdivisions, or highways outside city limits go to the TPSO.
Louisiana also requires a separate written report to the Department of Public Safety within 24 hours when property damage amounts to $100 or more, even if an officer never responded in person. Don’t assume the officer’s report covers that requirement automatically.
Document the Scene & Watch What You Say
Before anything gets moved or cleaned up, photograph everything you can: vehicle positions, points of impact, skid marks, road conditions, traffic signals, posted speed limits, and any debris. These images help establish what happened and what the site looked like before cleanup efforts, poor weather, and a return to normal driving conditions erases any evidence of the accident.
Exchange driver’s license numbers, insurance information, and contact details with everyone involved. Collect names and phone numbers from any witnesses before they leave the scene. Locating them afterward is much harder. One thing to avoid: any statement that sounds like an apology or an admission. Saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” or something similar is a natural human response, but under Louisiana’s current fault rules, that kind of statement can become part of the fault-percentage calculation that decides whether you recover anything at all.
Louisiana’s New Fault Rule Could Decide Your Claim
This is the change most Houma drivers don’t know about yet. For crashes before January 1, 2026, Louisiana used a pure comparative fault system, where your percentage of fault didn't prevent you from recovering damages, even if you were mostly to blame. This meant a driver who was 90% responsible could still recover 10% of their damages. That rule no longer governs auto accidents in Houma, Terrebonne Parish, or anywhere in the state.
Act 15 of 2025 amended Louisiana Civil Code Article 2323, moving the state to a modified comparative fault system. For any crash on or after January 1, 2026, a driver found 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. A driver found 50% or less at fault can still recover, but the award is reduced by their percentage of fault. The crash date determines which standard applies, so a December 2025 crash and a January 2026 crash can produce very different outcomes even with identical facts.
The practical effect is that fault percentage now carries far more weight than it did before. An insurance adjuster pushing your share of fault above 51% isn’t just reducing your payout. They’re trying to eliminate it entirely. That's why it's so important that you seek guidance from our car accident attorneys before talking to an adjuster, as this can help you protect your claim and your right to recovery.
Know Your Deadline & Coverage Limits Before You Wait
Louisiana uses the term liberative prescription for what most states call a statute of limitations, and the applicable period for car accident claims depends on when your crash happened. Under La. Civil Code Article 3493.1, crashes occurring on or after July 1, 2024 carry a two-year deadline to file a personal injury lawsuit. Crashes before that date remain on the prior one-year rule. Many Houma drivers don’t realize the one-year deadline they’ve heard about no longer applies to their situation, so confirming which rule governs your crash should be one of the first things you clarify.
Louisiana’s No Pay, No Play law, updated as of August 1, 2025, now bars an uninsured driver from recovering the first $100,000 in bodily injury damages and the first $100,000 in property damage, even when the other driver caused the crash entirely. The previous threshold was lower, and the new figures make carrying your own insurance significantly more consequential. If the at-fault driver’s coverage isn’t sufficient to cover your losses, your own uninsured motorist coverage becomes the primary route to recovery. Reviewing what your policy actually provides before you need it is worth the hour it takes, and our attorneys can walk through that coverage with you before you accept any settlement offer that closes those options off.
If your claim proceeds to a lawsuit, it would be filed in the 32nd Judicial District Court at the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse, 7856 Main Street, Houma, LA 70360. Local court practice, local judges, and local juries all shape how cases actually proceed, and that’s not something you want to learn on the fly.
The Steps You Take Now Shape What You Can Recover Later
What you document, what you say, which agency you report to, and whether you get prompt medical attention: these decisions in the hours after a crash create the foundation your claim is built on. Under the modified comparative fault rule now in effect, a claim that would have recovered something under the old pure comparative system could recover nothing if fault is pushed above 50%.
Getting guidance before you talk to an adjuster, and certainly before you sign anything, matters more now than it did before these rules changed. We offer free, confidential consultations for Houma drivers sorting through the next steps after a crash. Call us at (985) 331-7832 to talk through what happened and what your options look like under today’s law.