Police-report verified MVA leads

What “police-report verified” means

'Police-report verified' describes two different MVA lead products. One is a lead whose fault and injury details were checked against the crash report after the claimant reached out — a corroborated, premium version of an ordinary lead. The other is a list built from crash reports themselves, which turns the report into a solicitation source and runs into state anti-solicitation and crash-report access rules. Ask which one you are being sold.

The first product is an ordinary opt-in lead with extra checking. It starts the way most motor vehicle accident leads do — an injured person sees an advertisement and asks to be contacted — and the crash report is pulled afterwards to test their account. The second product reverses the order. The report comes first, and the “lead” is a person who has never asked to hear from anyone.

Both can be sold under the same words on a rate sheet, which is why the useful question is not whether a report exists but who made first contact.

Two products under one label

A third version sits between them: a signed case sold with the report already in the file. That is a retainer product rather than a lead, and the same first-contact question applies to it — the trade-offs are set out on signed MVA retainers.

What a police report does and does not prove

Corroboration is only worth paying for if you know what the report can carry. Florida’s long-form crash report is a useful example: it must record the date, time and location, the vehicles, the names and addresses of drivers, passengers and witnesses, the investigating officer, and the parties’ insurance companies (Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(b)).

What it can confirm

• That a collision was reported, and when and where. That alone catches a claimant with the wrong date or the wrong state.
• Who was involved and who saw it. Parties and witnesses are named, which gives intake someone to call besides the claimant.
• Which insurers were listed, where the state’s form records them — the gap a claimant-reported insurance screen leaves open.
• The officer’s account, including any citation. Unless the officer saw the crash, that account rests on what the officer observed afterwards and was told.

What it does not settle

• Fault. A citation or a contributing-factor entry is the officer’s view, not a binding finding of liability. In Florida, a party’s own crash-report statements generally cannot be used as evidence at trial (Fla. Stat. § 316.066(4)).
• Injury. A report written at the scene can only record what was apparent or reported there. Florida requires the long form for an officer-investigated crash with “any indication of complaints of pain or discomfort” (§ 316.066(1)(a)), but symptoms that start later will not be in it.
• Whether a report exists at all. In Texas an investigating officer is required to write one only where the collision caused injury or death, or apparent damage of $1,000 or more to any one person’s property (Tex. Transp. Code § 550.062(a)). In Florida, drivers in some property-damage crashes file their own report instead (Fla. Stat. § 316.066(1)(e)).
• Whether it is ready. Texas gives the officer until the 10th day after the collision to file (§ 550.062(b)), and Florida’s long form is due within 10 days after the investigation is completed (§ 316.066(1)(a)). A lead delivered in real time can arrive before the report has been filed.

Why leads built from crash reports are a solicitation problem

An opt-in lead begins with the claimant asking for help. A list built from crash reports begins with a vendor who knows, from the report, that a named person has just been in a collision, and contacts them first. Done to find clients for a law firm, that is close to what ABA Model Rule 7.3(a) defines as solicitation: a communication initiated by or for a lawyer, directed at a specific person known to need legal services in a particular matter, offering to provide them. Rule 7.3(b) bars it by live person-to-person contact when a significant motive is pecuniary gain, with narrow exceptions such as other lawyers and people with a prior relationship. The comment that permits paying lead generators (Rule 7.2, comment [5]) points to Rule 8.4(a), the duty not to break the rules through the acts of another.

States add their own limits. Two examples:

• Florida. Bar Rule 4-7.18(b)(1)(A) bars written solicitation about an accident to the person involved, or a relative, within 30 days of the accident, and the Florida Bar applies it to email, text and targeted social media as well as mail. The US Supreme Court upheld the 30-day direct-mail rule, then numbered 4-7.4(b)(1), in Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 515 U.S. 618 (1995). Separately, Fla. Stat. § 817.234(8)(b) makes it a third-degree felony to solicit, or cause to be solicited, business from a person involved in a motor vehicle accident, by any means other than advertising directed to the public, within 60 days after the accident, for the purpose of tort or PIP claims. Crash reports with personal details are confidential for 60 days after filing, and access generally requires a sworn statement, report by report, that it will not be used for commercial solicitation of accident victims (§ 316.066(2)(a), (d)); knowingly using it in breach of that statement is a third-degree felony (§ 316.066(3)(d)).
• Texas. Penal Code § 38.12(d)(2)(A) bars a licensed attorney from providing, or knowingly permitting to be provided, a written communication or a solicitation — in person, by phone, by social media message or other electronic means — about a personal injury or accident to someone who has not sought the lawyer’s services, before the 31st day after the accident. Paying a person to solicit employment, with intent to obtain an economic benefit, is a third-degree felony (§ 38.12(a)(4), (f)), and so is a professional knowingly accepting employment that results from it (§ 38.12(b)(3)), unless the conduct is authorized by the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct or a rule of court (§ 38.12(c)). The crash report form must let the people involved say whether they want to be contacted by someone seeking professional employment (Transp. Code § 550.064(b)(4)), and where the report shows they declined, the statute presumes they do not want contact (Penal Code § 38.12(e)).

None of this makes a lead suspect because a police report exists. A claimant who answered an advertisement and later had their report pulled is still an opt-in lead. A name taken from a report and called is not, and in states like these the firm that signs the case can share the problem. The wider framework is on bar rules for buying MVA leads.

These are examples from two states, not a survey; rules differ by jurisdiction. This is general information, not legal advice; confirm with your own counsel or state bar ethics hotline.

Where to buy police-report verified MVA leads

Some vendors sell MVA leads with the police report attached or checked before delivery, usually priced above claimant-reported screening. Our leads are screened on the claimant's own account — injury, fault, representation status, and accident date — and the lead record does not include a police report; your intake requests it after signing. Whoever you buy from, ask whether the report was pulled before or after the claimant made contact.

A report checked before delivery is worth questioning in detail, because the order of events is the whole issue. Access is restricted, too. Both Florida and Texas let the people involved and their representatives obtain the full report (Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(b); Tex. Transp. Code § 550.065(c)(4)), but in Texas anyone without a proper interest gets a copy with names, street addresses and phone numbers removed (§ 550.065(c-1), (f)).

Questions to ask before you pay for a report

1. Did the claimant contact you first? Ask for the consent record: timestamp, IP, the exact disclosure text and the page it appeared on. If first contact ran the other way, nothing else on this list matters. What a usable record contains is covered under TCPA consent requirements.
2. When was the report pulled, relative to the inquiry? A report pulled before the claimant made contact suggests the report was the source.
3. How did you obtain it? In Florida, for the first 60 days, a third party acting for someone entitled to the report may disclose it only to the person it acted for (Fla. Stat. § 316.066(2)(b)). A vendor that says it checked the report should be able to explain the route.
4. What exactly was checked? Fault, parties, insurer, injury — and what happens when the report contradicts the claimant’s account. Get that answer, and any credit attached to it, in writing.
5. Do I receive the report, or only the word “verified”? A check you cannot see is a claim, not corroboration.
6. In Texas, did the claimant mark the report to decline contact? If so, the barratry statute presumes they did not want to be approached (Penal Code § 38.12(e)).
7. For a signed case with the report in the file: how was the claimant first reached, and who signed them?

The rest of the vetting call — exclusivity, resale, credits, data ownership — is in the MVA lead vendor questions script.

What our screening is instead

We do not sell a police-report verified tier, and our lead record does not include a police report. Every lead is screened on the claimant’s own account — injury, fault, representation status, and accident date — against the intake criteria you set before delivery. That is claimant-reported screening — the market standard, and what most exclusive supply is.

Each lead goes to one firm and is never resold. It arrives by webhook within seconds of consent capture, with a consent record — timestamp, IP, the exact disclosure text, the source URL and the form payload — producible on request. On month-to-month supply, leads that fail the criteria agreed before delivery — wrong state, no injury, already represented, or unreachable contact details — are credited against the next invoice.

Your intake requests the police report after signing, as the claimant’s representative, which is when the report does its real work: testing the account, naming witnesses and, where the state’s form records them, the insurers. Whoever you buy from, settle in writing what happens when the report and the screen disagree.

How each filter is screened, and what tightening it does to volume, is set out under the four qualification filters. Delivery, filters and credit terms are covered in how to buy MVA leads. We take the same plain position on aged MVA leads, which we also do not sell.