The Anatomy of an Accident Claim

I'm writing this after a long day of chasing adjusters, trying to iron out the specifics on an underinsured uninsured motorist policy my client has with their insurance company.

Here's the backstory:

My uncle is this man's insurance agent. and he called my uncle when he got into an accident. My uncle told him that this is what I do. He hired me. I guided him through the process of getting treated for his injuries (numerous herniated discs in his back) and next thing you know I have a $100,000 check in the mail from the insurance company and that's the maximum they could give us under the policy their insured paid for. It was a great day at The Smotherman Law Firm and naturally I felt especially accomplished for the rest of the week at the office.

But $100,000 wasn't technically enough to cover the recommended surgery my client will eventually have to have. So thank goodness he opted in for the uninsured motorist policy with his insurance provider that also covers underinsured motorists. Because his damages were over $100,000 and he only recovered $100,000, he would be able to call on his own insurance comany to cover up to certain policy limits for the cost of his injuries that weren't covered. So he has $50,000 of his own coverage. And he's a customer to the insurance company he's about to make a claim on. So they have to do right by him legally, under the policy, but they also have to do right by him from a customer service perspective— his calls should be returned quickly, he shouldn't have to do much of a run around, and they should thank him at the end of it. I imagine the only position that would be better to be in would be to be the not-at fault party, with underinsured coverage, calling the insurance company that you've been paying a policy on, but it's also an insurance company you're a shareholder of— you probably have a lot of insurance if you fit this description. And now I'm forced to think of my wife because that's exactly who she is, but she's not a shareholder yet.

I digress. As I always do.

Suffice it to say, I'm in the mood to talk about Houston accident cases and the personal injury and insurance section of my practice. I thought it might be helpful for people looking for information to assist them with their insurance claims, after an auto accident that wasn't their fault, if I could paint the picture of the process that is initiating a claim to depositing the settlement check.

My apologies if there's any trauma involved with reliving your accident, but if you've been injured in an accident in Texas, I can get the insurance company to pay for the counseling/therapy/psychiatric appointments required to address the mental damage caused by someone else's negligence, contact the firm now.

But without further ado:

Impact

Whether you saw it or not. Whether you're okay or not. Whether you're at fault or not. Whether you have insurance or not. You've been involved in an accident.

If we assume you remain conscious, and the other driver stops to give their information, the rest of the process is up to you. If you're unconscious, the police will collect the other driver's information for you, or your family members, or in a very bad case: your heirs and beneficiaries. If the other driver takes off and runs from the accident, the police and insurance companies generally investigate to identify the party responsible and insure that the criminal courts handle it if the insurance company doesn't.

Preserve the Accident Scene

Take pictures. I recomend taking at least 6-8 pictures of the scene alone, as if you start at the hood, take 2 -3 steps back, and start snapping photos as you circle the accident scene getting the drivers side, the rear quarter on the driver side, the rear, the rear quarter on the passenger side, the passenger side, and back to the front. Be sure to get pictures of any street signs that may be relevant, or how the lanes were marked a few yards before the accident scene. When I talk to the general public about what to do during an accident in preparation for an attorney's review, I say "you can't take too many photos, you can't give me too much information." I'd rather have 100 photos sent to me and not need 95 of them than have 5 photos sent to me and wishing more were taken because I can't see a streetsign clearly or something like a license plate isn't showing on another car involved in a 3 car pile up. Try to capture things like the weather, road conditions, traffic conditions, visibility conditions like whether it's light or dork, foggy or smoggy or clear.

Exchange Information

Things you need to get from the other driver under perfect circumstances:

A photo of their driver's license. (you'll need their full name, address, license number and state of issuance for the license)

A photo or screenshot of their insurance policy card (their policy number and confirm the coverage by calling the number on their card and giving the customer service agent their policy number). If you can't get a photo of their insurance card, you need to know the make, model, year, and color of the vehicle. You'll need their insurance company's name and their policy number with said company.

Get their license plate number. This will be important for insurance companies and the police if there is an issue down the road. Mainly because it should be associated with the vehicle's VIN.

In a perfect world, you get their phone number. You don't always need it, but in the event the insurance company claims they don't have a policy, or if your insurance company needs that person's contact information for their investigation. It's not a requirement but it can certainly help you avoid a headache if things go awry.

Identify Witnesses

Whether it be someone in your car who may also be making a claim on the at-fault party's insurance, or a person on the side of the road that saw it while they were walking their dog. You want names, numbers and addresses. Maybe you make a note for your own recall of who's who like :guy walking dog" vs "passenger in the at-fault car."

Inventory Damages and Injuries

Check on your body and the bodies of people in your car. Ask if their okay, check their skin for cuts, bruises, rashes, etc. Keep a record of everything, including the damage to your car and the damage to theirs.

Important notes you might not think about:

If you're leaving the grocery store, and you get into an accident, you can be reimbursed for the groceries that spoiled because it took you 3 hours to get home from the grocery store 8 mins away from your home.

If your laptop cracks because it fell from the seat and got smashed with your door: new laptop on their dollar.

Soft tissue injuries, like whiplash, but also like sore and tender muscles and joints, don't alway show up immediately. Sometimes, your adrenaline kicks in at the scene of the accident and you don't feel an ache untile 2 or 3 days later.

Coinsider Calling the Police

Police can be helpful after an accident for many reasons. Generally, they can divert traffic around the crash making the scene safer for processing. The also creat crash reports and become witnesses available to the insurance companies and potentially the courts if that becomes necessary. They also ensure order amongst the parties involved in the accident— road rage is real everywhere, but it's basically a part of the houston culture with our horrendous traffic.

Unfortunately, if the police show up then someone, and maybe everyone, is getting a ticket. BUT this is part of my criminal defense practice, I'm confident you won't have to worry about a ticket from an accidnet unless this is like your 4th accident this year. Don't let a ticket stop you from calling the police if the accident scene is not safe or if the at-fault party is acting in a way that is disorderly or overly confrontational.

Go Home. Or Get Home.

You've done it all. There's nothing more to do. Consider yourself lucky if you can drive your car home after an accident. However you need to do it, just get home.

Remember, you probably don't feek most of the lasting pain until 2-3 days pass. You should rest, you're going to need it.

My Advice: Hire a Lawyer Now.

If you ask me, your next step should be to call a lawyer. Whether it be someone you see on a billboard, someone you hear on the radio or see on the TV, someone a coworker got help from with their recent accident, or someone you went to college with, or cough cough me cough cough.

But I recommend getting a lawyer sooner rather than later. A lawyer can advise you on where to get treatment started, they can inventory the policy's available to collect from, initiate claims without anything being used against you because you didn't say it yourself, and in a comparative liability state like Texas a lawyer can help present a resistance to the insurance company increasing your attributable fault.

But, if you're not my favorite type of client that just lets me do everything, and you think you can do it yourself, you're always entitled to hiring a lawyer at anytime. Please know that our ability to undo damage is very limited. The conversations with the insurance companies are recorded, the conversations at the scene of the accident are usually recorded by someone too. They ask for your medical history and try to attribute your injuries from the accident to a preexisting item in you medical past. They take your bill amounts and assume you can secure reductions and make offers based on the reduced amounts that were billed by your medical providers.

Filing an accident claim is a very long process, with many opportunities to minimize the value of your claim. I'm trying to really insist that you hire a lawyer sooner rather than later.

Treat.

This is the easy part for me as your Accident Lawyer in Houston. All I have to do is wait for your doctors to say you're good or that they've done all they can do to get you as good as you're going to get. And all you have to do is treat your injuries and heal. Meaning: chiropractor visits, MRIs potentially, facet injections or nerve blocks, maybe even surgery. The more hurt you are the longer it takes to treat. But none of this matters if you don't have the treatment to validate the injury. You cant tell an insurance company to pay you for your back pain if it doesn't hurt enough for you go to a chirppractor or physical therapy.

Recover.

Don't rush this. If it takes 6 months, it takes 6 months. If it take 20 months, it's going to be 20 months. Focus on healing.

Gather Your Bills and Records.

You're going to need to compile all of your papers from this process. The more you treat, the more papers you'll have for your bills and records. Say you spend $8,000 on chiro over 10 months, $5,000 for MRIs, $28,000 for shots, and get a $105,000 estimate for a recommended surgery you will need in the future because of your accident. You're going to need to add all of that up, and have the records with the doctors notes, findings, and recommendations attached.

Demand Payment or Reimbursement.

You should definitely have a lawyer by now because now you're going to want to know all of the protections the law has for consumers who are making demands of their insurance company. The law says that there are STIFF penalties when an insurance company acts unreasonably or in bad faith. That could mean taking too long to investigate the claim, or it could mean taking too long to accept or deny the claim, or it could mean offering an unreasonable number to settle a case (like offering $20,000 to settle the hypothetical claim above with over $100,000 in damages). You don't appreciate the value of a lawyer until you're looking at a $20,000 offer to settle over $100,000 of debt for an accident you didn't cause. These cases routinely come through my firm.

Agree on a Settlement or File a Lawsuit.

Maybe you get them up from 20,000 to a numbe you can stomach. Or maybe you don't. You can eithe rtake their offer and release everyone on their side of the case from future liability (like if the surgery doesn't get you back to normal and you have back problems for the rest of your life), or you can take them in front of a judge and jury.

Release and Deposit

Assuming your case falls into the more than 95% of cases that settle, you will recieve a release to sign before you can deposit your settlement check. Once you deposit your check and pay your lawyer and the medical providers, the rest is your compensation for the injury. Some people use these funds for vacations, some add it to the money they got in the property portion of their claim to buy a newer or better car, I've even had a client invest all of her personal injury recovery in Amazon stock. The point is, it's now your money— no one can force you to spend it on anything.

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I hope this helps. I'm really passionate about helping Houstonians, and Texans, with their insurance companies because at the end of the day the insurance company is in the business of denying claims. These companies make their money on getting paid premiums for policies they never have to honor claims on— and when they do have to accept a claim they try to minimize their payouts to protect their bottom line. And that just feels wrong to me. I won't stand for it and I hope you don't either. If you or someone you love is getting the run arround from the insurance company after an accident that wasn't your fault, just remember to keep calm and #gogetGary

Stay Safe Houston,

Gary