Bastrop, TX Personal Injury Law Firms & Lawyers

The reason you have insurance is to protect you in the event that your car, or anyone driving it with your permission, is responsible for causing an accident and resulting injury. While the driver's insurance should be primary on the injury claims, if there are any, your insurance should be primary on your property damage claim. While her insurance may be willing to pay for your property damage, the reason you have insurance is to repair your vehicle when it is damaged, whether your fault or not. You have a first party contractual relationship with your carrier and as a result they must treat you fairly, while you have no such relationship with the driver's insurance. Therefore, they don't have to repair disputed damage, nor do they have to repair it in a reasonable period of time. If you pursue repairs through your own carrier, they will subrogate the amount they pay to repair your vehicle, meaning they will pursue reimbursement from the driver's carrier. Therefore, instead of dealing with a company with which you have no relationship and hence no real leverage over, you should pursue your property damage repairs through your own carrier and let them go get it from the other company. Given the accident is not your fault and your carrier will be getting reimbursement there should be no adverse effect on your premiums.

Contrary to popular belief, car liability insurance carriers generally do not fund medical expenses prior to the expenses being incurred. And if they do, the personal injury victim wants no part of it.   Before any personal injury victim can consider settlement or what is reasonable for medical expenses they must first identify their medical issue and be certain that the issue has been resolved or the have reached maximum medical improvement. In short, the victim needs to go to a doctor identify the problem and get necessary treatment prior to exploring a settlement with the insurance company.   Many insurance carriers seek to "estimate" the medical expenses which is a very lowball number and asked the victim for a release at the time they advance a small amount for medical expenses. Should the injury proved to be more serious than originally thought, the personal injury victim is one left holding the bag and not the insurance carrier.   Most soft tissue type injuries resolve themselves after periods of time and that time can be shortened with treatment. However, more serious conditions such as a herniated disc -bulging disk can require much more extensive treatment and even potentially surgery.   Insurance carriers also look for any reason to fault your treatment and one of their major areas of dispute is waiting too long to see a doctor. Basically the argument is "if it's so bad why did you wait so long to go to a doctor".   Do not delay but seek treatment and identify your specific medical problem as soon as possible as the most important factor here is your personal health and not necessarily a settlement or lawsuit.

See if the local code compliance office can help you out. Also, try to go up the chain of corporate ownership; find out who the owners of the complex are (it's probably a real estate partnership, so find out who the partners are) and contact them directly, they don't want their tenants to suffer and they don't want to have to put up with your complaining. Also, see if there is some disability advocacy group in your area, it's possible that the complex owners are violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.