If you plan to buy a used car, you can never be too cautious, especially when it’s from someone you’re not so familiar with. To make sure everything is fine, you can perform a thorough check on the vehicle’s past before buying. One place you shouldn’t miss is its accident history. In this post, we share with you how to easily perform a car accident lookup by VIN.

Don’t have the VIN? Try searching by the license plate.

Why it’s important to check car accident history?

When shopping used cars, you might come across one with a rebuilt or salvage title, which is normally cheaper than the average. A car gets a salvage title when an insurer determines the vehicle is damaged to a total loss, then gets a rebuilt title when it’s roadworthy after necessary repairs.

For buyers who have the expertise, these vehicles could be a good bargain. However, serious accidents might cause lingering hidden problems on the car – even if they’ve been fixed and inspected. So it’s better to check its accident history to know what you’re dealing with before purchasing.

Even if you’re buying one with a clean title, it won’t hurt to know more about it. All you need is a VIN. With proper decoders, it can tell you more than you might expect, including but way beyond its accident history.

Method 1: Reveal accident history with BeenVerified

BeenVerified is a strong vehicle search engine with access to a large amount of public data sources including government agencies and auto partners. Enter a VIN, and it will fetch all the available information linked to the VIN, which may include its accident records, number of previous owners, recalls, title records, warranty details, and more.

1. Go to BeenVerified.
2. Enter the VIN and click SEARCH.
   
3. Wait as BeenVerified runs the search and generates a report.
4. On the report page, you’ll see a navigation bar on the left to help you easily access the section that you’re interested in.
   
5. To view the vehicle accident records, you can go to the Damage History section, where you may also find the salvage and damage reports. Note that BeenVerified is a subscription-based service and you’ll need to purchase a membership plan to view the report.
   

Bonus

BeenVerified is an all-around people search engine that supports not only VIN lookup, but also searching by real name, username, phone number, email search, and more. With one subscription, you can access all of its search platforms.

Method 2: Lookup car accident record on Bumper

Bumper is an excellent alternative to BeenVerified. As an Approved NMVTIS (National Motor Vehicle Title Information System) Data Provider, it gathers vehicle records from government agencies, insurance providers, and car industry sources. It’s capable of revealing information about the VIN, like accident reports, title records, market value, theft records, and more.

1. Visit the Bumper search page.
2. Enter the VIN and click SEARCH.
   
3. Wait for Bumper to scour its database and find you all the available records associated with the VIN number. Note that Bumper is also a paid service.

Method 3: Get accident info from NICB (free)

If you prefer a free solution, you can try the VIN check tool provided by NICB (National Insurance Crime Bureau). This is a free theft and salvage record check platform, allowing to you run up to 5 searches per day.

Here’s how to use the NICB database:

1. Go to the NICB VINCheck page.
2. Enter the VIN number, check the terms of use, and click SEARCH VIN.
   
3. Wait for it’s done. You’ll know if the vehicle was ever reported stolen or damaged to a total loss.
   

Please be aware that it’ll only tell you whether a vehicle’s ever been marked as stolen or salvaged, with nothing more. And sometimes its database is not so up to date. But still, worth a shot – it’s free of charge anyway. If that’s not good enough for you, you can check vehicle accidents using a professional tool.

Method 4: Find accident record by license plate

What if the VIN is not available at the moment? No worries. Because you can still check car accident records with license plate number. In fact, the license plate number of a car is linked to its VIN, which means it can also reveal information you need to know like accident reports, recent sale listings, theft history, salvage records, previous owners, and more.

Enter the license plate number and the state below, then let it finds the information you need.

These are how you access the vehicle’s accident record by VIN. Apart from VIN lookup, we recommend you perform a thorough mechanical inspection on the vehicle before buying. And don’t forget to choose a transparent seller. We hope you find the post helpful!