How a Claim Works
What actually happens, and when.
Five stages, from the day it happened to the day the money is disbursed. Including the parts nobody explains until it is too late to act on them.
Do I have a case?-
Days 1 to 14
The window that closes fastest
This fortnight decides more than any other. Surveillance video from a store or parking garage typically overwrites within days to a few weeks. A damaged vehicle gets repaired, sold, or scrapped, taking its event data recorder with it. Skid marks fade, the roadway gets cleaned, and witnesses stop being findable.
Meanwhile the other side is working. An insurer opens a file within days and, in a commercial vehicle case, a rapid-response team may reach the scene within hours. Written preservation demands sent now are the single highest-value action available, and they have to go out before anyone knows exactly what the evidence will show.
Watch for: The recorded statement request usually arrives in this window. You are not obliged to give one to the other party's insurer.
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Weeks 2 to 12
Treatment, and the record it creates
An injury claim is proven on paper, and the paper is your medical record. Gaps in treatment are the most common way a genuine injury becomes hard to value: a six-week gap between the accident and the first appointment gives the defense an argument that something else caused the problem, whatever the truth is.
This is also when liability gets investigated properly. The crash report is obtained and checked, because they contain errors more often than people expect. Witnesses are contacted while they still remember. Where fault is contested or the physics matter, a reconstruction expert is engaged.
Watch for: Early settlement offers tend to arrive here, before anyone knows how the injury resolves. Accepting one closes the claim permanently.
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When treatment stabilises
Valuing it, and the demand
A claim cannot be valued sensibly until the medical picture is stable, meaning either recovery or a clear prognosis for what is permanent. Settling before that point means guessing at the largest component of the claim.
At that stage the coverage position is established: every applicable policy, including your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and any excess layers on a commercial policy. Then a documented demand goes to the carrier setting out liability, the medical record, the losses, and the number.
Watch for: This is where the case is actually valued. Anyone who quoted you a figure in the first phone call was guessing.
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Months, and before the two-year deadline
Negotiation, or filing suit
Most claims resolve here, through offer and counter-offer. Where the carrier will not move to a serious number, the case is filed. Filing is a step in the negotiation rather than a commitment to a trial, and it opens discovery, which is where the other side has to produce the documents it has been declining to discuss.
The two-year limitations deadline under § 16.003(a) governs this whole stage. Suit has to be on file before it passes, and negotiations that are still friendly on the day the deadline expires are worth nothing afterwards.
Watch for: A case prepared as though it will be tried consistently settles for more than one that has not been.
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At resolution
What actually reaches you
Between the settlement figure and your cheque sit the medical liens, health plan subrogation claims, the contingency fee, and the advanced case expenses. Negotiating the medical side down is unglamorous work that frequently moves the client's net by more than the last round of argument with the insurer did.
You should be shown a written disbursement statement listing every deduction before anything is paid out. If the arithmetic is not clear on one page, ask until it is.
Watch for: The settlement number and the number you take home are different. Ask for the breakdown early rather than at the end.
The Compressed Version
Save the evidence in week one. Finish your treatment. Do not sign anything until the medical picture is stable.
At This Stage
What people ask at this point.
How long does an injury claim take?
A straightforward claim with a clean recovery and clear liability can resolve in a few months. One involving surgery, a permanent injury, disputed fault, or a commercial defendant usually runs a year or more, and filing suit extends it further. The single largest factor is medical: nothing can be valued properly until treatment stabilises.
Why would I file a lawsuit if most cases settle?
Because filing changes what the other side has to do. It opens discovery, which compels production of documents, data, and sworn testimony that a carrier will simply decline to hand over during informal negotiation. Many cases settle after filing and before trial, on better terms than were available before.
What is the most common mistake people make?
Waiting. Not out of carelessness, usually, but because the first weeks after an accident are spent on treatment, work, and getting a vehicle sorted. The evidence that proves the claim is quietly expiring during exactly that period, and no amount of later effort brings back video that has already been recorded over.
Do I have to talk to the other driver's insurance company?
You have obligations to your own insurer under your policy. You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other party's insurer, and their adjuster is not neutral. It is reasonable to confirm the basic facts and decline to be interviewed at length.
This describes how injury claims generally proceed in Texas. It is background rather than legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
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