Stress covering up identification in crash (8)
I believe the answer is:
accident
'crash' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'stress covering up identification' is the wordplay.
'stress' becomes 'accent' ('accent' can be a synonym of 'stress').
'covering up' indicates putting letters inside.
'identification' becomes 'id'.
'accent' placed around 'id' is 'ACCIDENT'.
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for accident that I've seen before include "Dance tic leading to mishap" , "Chance misfortune or injury" , "Eg, car crash" , "tragedy?" , "Pile-up" .)