There's nothing good about being involved in an accident. However, there are things you can do to move past a fender bender with as little stress as possible. Here are the things that you are going to want to do after being involved in a minor automobile accident.

Contact your insurance carrier

The first thing you want to do once you have dealt with getting the cars to a safe area is to exchange insurance info with the other party. As soon as possible, put in a call to your insurance company and let them know what happened. They will want all the information, including the information on the other party's insurance carrier and policy.

Get estimates

You will need to get estimates on the repairs that will be done to your car to take care of the damage caused during the accident. Here's where some people get a bit confused. The insurance company may give you information on the shops they want you to go to in order to get your estimates. They may make it seem as if these are the only places that you can go to have the work done on your car. However, this is not true and often times they give you specific locations because those are the less expensive shops.

You can take your car to the auto body repair shop of your choosing and the insurance company will still pay out for the repairs done at that shop, even if the repairs are more to have done there than they would have been if you had the repairs taken care of at one of the shops that they would have preferred you to go to.

Have the work done on your car

As soon as you choose your shop, you want to have your car repaired. You'll want to have it done as quickly as feasible for several reasons. Here are some of the reasons for the importance of having things taken care of soon:

• You won't have safety issues going on due to certain types of damages that can be hazardous
• You won't put your car at risk of having other problems develop due to the current issues
• You won't have to drive around in a car that looks bad due to the accident
• You won't have your car be at an increased risk of developing rust
• You can put the entire fender bender in your past and move on with your life