Lady pulls out in front of my son and wreck causes my beautiful Aggie maroon F-150 to be totaled. The insured has refused to give a statement. We're coming up on 2 months since accident and I still have not begun negotiations for payoff. Anyone have insight into how long these companies have?

I've called multiple times and all they say is, "we continue to make attempts. When all attempts have been exhausted, we'll close the case." However, they won't tell me how many attempts = "all."

Wondering if I should find the sleaziest downtown Houston lawyer to go after them.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

It was a paid off truck worth about $10k. I wasn't carrying the right coverage for my insurance to pay me directly.

Has a claim been filed with the insurance company? If so, are you talking with the adjuster assigned to the claim?
It appears the insurance company is going to say their insured didn't cooperate. At that point, your only real recourse is to file a lawsuit and serve the defendant. Good news, since your claim is not very much, you can file in small claims court and it will move pretty fast. I wouldn't let them off the hook by simply avoiding calls, letters, especially since you don't have your own coverage to fall back on.

They left me a VM yesterday and I'm waiting for a call this morning. Will update.

Just was told that since the insured has refused to give a statement and is uncooperative, they are abating the claim.

I guess I have to go the sleazy lawyer route.

I would imagine getting a lawyer to send a demand letter would help move things along, but could be naive here.

Usually at the stage he is at, a demand letter won't really do much as they have essentially closed their file. The only real way to get their attention is to file a small claims case, get the defendant served, and then deal with the attorney that the insurance company hires to defend the case.

That's not the insurance companies take. They have a policy/contract in place. Insured needs to abide by the policy terms. They aren't abiding/cooperating. That's why I say the insurance company isn't the bad guy yet. Only real remedy is to file.

Diggity said:

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my take would be that non-cooperation is an implicit admission of fault.

Otherwise, what's the point of responding?

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My thoughts exactly. Insurance company keeps saying that it is specified in the policy. Insured's penalty will be a Do Not Renew. Not much of a penalty.

ALWAYS call the police or get witness statements. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a policy report overrides the other party's silence.

A police report is handy, but not conclusive. On non-injury accidents, a lot of agencies will not prepare an official accident report. The insurance company will still want to discuss the accident with their insured. The only real way to get this one moving is likely to be filing a suit in small claims court.

You have two years from the date of loss to bring action against the individual. Meaning, settle within the two years or file a lawsuit against the individual. Part of the duties of the insured is to cooperate with the insurance company. If the insured doesn't cooperate, they could deny the claim. That doesn't mean the insured is off the hook. However, more likely than not, if the insured is served with a lawsuit, they will begin cooperating with the insurance company because they don't have the funds to pay for the damages.

Go through your collision coverage if you have it. They'll reopen the file for the subrogation claim and it's far cheaper and less time consuming than paying an attorney or filing in small claims.

Aggiemike96 said:

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ALWAYS call the police or get witness statements. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a policy report overrides the other party's silence.

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Have both of those. But unless the insured cooperates, I'm stuck.

I would try escalating it to a manager at the carrier if you have that. They should be able to make a coverage determination based on the driver/vehicle information on the police report.

I would hope they can determine liability with it as well.

They leave themselves open to 1st party bad faith claims if they have actionable information and choose not to use it.

I was similar, but much less severe situation about 7 years ago. A guy swerved into my lane, we both pulled over and exchanged insurance information. I called the police when he started saying it was my fault. Police wouldn't determine fault, no eyewitnesses or camera footage. The guy never reached out to my insurance, but I called his. It took his insurance about 6 weeks to get ahold of the guy. His statement was "I didn't do it". That's all it took for them to close the case and refuse to pay out, saying they only thing that would change their mind is a video. My truck had about $1,500 in cosmetic damages and i was about to pass it down to a teenage son, so I didn't bother getting it fixed.

The next day I got dashcams for all 4 of my vehicles. They've come in handy twice since then when family members were involved in accidents that were not their fault, and the faulty parties claimed otherwise.

aggiebrad94 said:

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It was a paid off truck worth about $10k. I wasn't carrying the right coverage for my insurance to pay me directly.

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Just curious what your total savings was by dropping collision on this vehicle ?


10k is a lot of premium to recover from savings from dropping collision unless you just have a terrible driving record, or is this an under 21 driver ?


I have always carried full coverage on my vehicles for this reason


You will probably have to file suit in jp court and even then they may no show and just end up with a default judgement that you may never see a dime on. Will cost around $200 to file in jp court and have them served if in Texas.

Agilaw said:

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Usually at the stage he is at, a demand letter won't really do much as they have essentially closed their file. The only real way to get their attention is to file a small claims case, get the defendant served, and then deal with the attorney that the insurance company hires to defend the case.

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What is the remedy for payment if the party no shows and a default judgement is granted ?

Can an individual garnish wages in Texas ?

You can file a complaint with the TDI if this happened in TX. They will reach out to the carrier and require a response, usually in around 30 days.

https://www.tdi.texas.gov/consumer/auto-insurance-complaint.html

Unfortunately, if the other carrier's insured is unresponsive, you are probably **** out of luck. If you have a nice carrier yourself, they may pay out under underinsured/uninsured motorists coverage since you don't have collision. Again unlikely but worth the discussion.

JP - not getting anywhere on garnishing wages. Texas have very strong laws for protecting an individual's assets and limitation on garnishing wages. In a case like this, you can sue and get a judgment. Abstract the judgment. Conduct post-judgment discovery, etc. Would they be able to get $ from the individual this way? Possibly, but not a sure thing at all. The best case scenario, with the facts where they stand, is to file complaint with the TDI, sue the individual in small claims court, send a file-marked copy of the petition/complaint to the insurance company, and hope the insurance company steps in by hiring counsel to defend the case. If they don't, you are left with the default judgment route mentioned earlier. Outside chance you could locate where they bank if trying to enforce judgment.

I got clipped by an uninsured black dude in his early 20s on 121 about 6 years ago. His mom and brother show up at the scene and while we wait for a trooper to show, I overhear them plotting a story of how to make it my fault. I look over at them and say "Y'all should know I have a dashcam". Shut their ass up and he gave the cops an accurate story.

Now because his dumb ass was uninsured, I was still stuck using my UM coverage. But it at least got me a clean police report, they cited him, and he had no chance to come after mine

What company does the other driver have for their insurance?

any recommendations on dash cams? I have four teenage drivers ...

I like FitcamX

aggiebrad94 said:

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I guess I have to go the sleazy lawyer route.

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Looks like some "sleazy lawyers" giving you free legal advice on this thread to help you out of a situation of your own creation.

Best of luck. I bet you'd be a wonderful, well paying, understanding client.

hamean02 said:

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any recommendations on dash cams? I have four teenage drivers ...

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I have the Rove R2-4k Pro. This one is about 3 years old and still works like a champ in spite of getting baked in the Texas heat. Would run about $100

Another similar story. My wife was driving her Tesla and was in an accident. Unclear on whose fault it was. Cops refused to come because nobody was injured. Other driver couldn't produce valid insurance. 20 minutes after the accident the other driver's mom, brother, and husband showed up and so did I. They knew our car recorded everything and "demanded" we meet them at a police station 1/2 mile down the road. We said sure.

We volunteered the camera footage to the cops. 3 officers independently reviewed it, all agreed the other driver was at fault and we left with a police report clearly stating that. The other driver left with tickets for no insurance, driving with a suspended license, and reckless driving. We had to use our UM coverage. We were appalled when the other driver came after our insurance for "injuries" she sustained in the accident, which our insurance quickly denied.

CC09LawAg said:

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aggiebrad94 said:

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I guess I have to go the sleazy lawyer route.

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Looks like some "sleazy lawyers" giving you free legal advice on this thread to help you out of a situation of your own creation.

Best of luck. I bet you'd be a wonderful, well paying, understanding client.

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My own creation? Can you elaborate?