After a crash or an injury, most of the work of a claim happens with an insurance company, not in a courtroom. The adjuster you deal with works for the insurer paying the claim, whichever company that is. Which insurer you claim from first, how much your own fault counts, how long the insurer has to answer and what an offer buys from you all depend on your state’s law and on whose policy it is.
This page is general information, not legal, tax or medical advice, and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Injury law and deadlines vary by state and change. Ask a lawyer or the court about your situation.
Injury Handbook sells nothing and refers no one. The pages below, taken in the order people usually meet them, explain the process and the rules we read, with the date we read them. They don’t tell you whether to give a statement, accept an offer, counter it or sue.
Find your place
- An adjuster has just called or written: start with who the adjuster works for.
- You don’t know whose insurer pays your medical bills: see which insurer comes first.
- The insurer says you were partly to blame: see fault percentages.
- Your car is in the shop: see rental cars.
- You sent a demand and heard nothing, or you’re holding an offer: see the demand and the wait and reading an offer.
Who the adjuster works for
An adjuster investigates a claim and decides whether, and how much, the company pays. The Texas Department of Insurance puts it in one line: the adjuster “works for the insurance company paying the claim” (TDI, Working with an insurance adjuster).
Most of what follows turns on one question: is this a claim under your own policy, or against someone else’s? Your own policy is a contract that lists your duties after an accident. With the other driver’s insurer you have no contract, and the rules it works under are different. Adjusters ask for recorded statements, medical authorizations, wage records and often a Social Security or Medicare number, which federal reporting rules on Medicare beneficiaries explain. What an insurance adjuster does, and what they can ask goes through each request, what you can ask in return, and the claims-handling rules we read.
Which insurer comes first
In a fault state, someone hurt in a crash claims against the driver who caused it, through that driver’s liability insurer. Twelve states and the District of Columbia have auto no-fault laws that we read. There, your own policy’s personal injury protection (PIP) pays the first part of your injury costs whoever caused the crash, and suits for pain and suffering are limited until an injury crosses a line the statute sets. In Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and DC, people can choose whether that limit applies to them.
“No-fault” doesn’t mean nobody is at fault: fault still decides who pays once a claim passes the threshold. PIP claims also have deadlines of their own, separate from the deadline to sue the other driver. The no-fault states lookup shows each state’s PIP figure and lawsuit threshold as read in the statute, and marks the states we haven’t read as not confirmed.
Fault percentages: a position, not a finding
If the insurer thinks you share the blame, its figures can reflect that. An adjuster who says “you were 20% at fault” is stating a position. If a case is tried, a jury or judge decides fault.
What a fault share does to a claim depends on the state. In most states it cuts what you can recover, and past a set point it can bar the claim. In Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, courts still apply contributory negligence, where your own negligence can bar recovery however small your share, with exceptions. Rules have moved recently: Florida added a bar above 50% for suits filed after 24 March 2023, Louisiana’s 51% bar took effect on 1 January 2026, and New York bars a claimant more at fault than those sued in car-crash injury suits filed from 26 May 2026. The comparative and contributory negligence lookup gives each state’s rule with the statute or opinion we read, and applies it to losses and a fault share you enter. Its result is an estimate, not a prediction.
A car while yours is fixed
If another driver caused the crash, that driver’s liability insurer is normally the one that pays for a rental, or for the “loss of use” of your car, while yours is repaired or replaced. It pays once it accepts that its driver was at fault, for a reasonable period, and for a car reasonably comparable to yours. Until then, the faster route is often your own rental coverage, if your policy has it, within the daily and total limits on your declarations page. Rental cars when the crash wasn’t your fault covers both routes, total losses, and the state rules we read.
The demand and the wait
A demand letter is the written claim, usually with medical records and bills, that asks the other side’s insurer to pay a stated sum. No national law says how long an insurer has to answer it. Some states set clocks. California, for example, gives an insurer 40 calendar days after proof of claim to accept or deny it, in whole or in part, or to say in writing why it needs more time, and then to update the claimant every 30 days (10 CCR 2695.7(b), (c)(1), read 6 November 2026). Texas’s prompt-payment timetable covers only claims under your own policy. Those clocks govern a decision, not a finished settlement, and we found no public data on how long the rounds of offers usually take.
How long after a demand letter until you hear back sets out every response rule we read, what can stretch the wait, and what to do if you’ve heard nothing.
Reading an offer
No dollar figure makes an offer “good” in general, and no public dataset of settlement amounts exists to compare yours with. An offer is usually one sum in exchange for your signature on a release, which closes the claim, including treatment you haven’t had yet. Taking an offer apart comes down to four questions: what your losses add up to, how much insurance stands behind the offer, how your state splits fault, and what you would keep after any fee, repayments to Medicare, Medicaid or a health plan, and tax.
What is a good settlement offer? works through those four questions with a made-up example, line by line, and sets out what Texas and Florida law expect of insurers when they make an offer. It doesn’t say whether to accept, reject or counter.
The clock that doesn’t wait for the insurer
The time limit to sue keeps running while the insurer considers your claim, and nothing in the rules we read treats a demand letter or a complaint to a regulator as stopping it. There is no national deadline: the general limits we read run from one year to six, and a claim against a city, county, state or federal agency can need written notice within months, and children, injuries found later, medical malpractice and a death can change the period. California makes insurers warn a claimant without a lawyer, in writing, at least 60 days before a time limit they may rely on runs out (30 days on a first-party uninsured motorist claim; 10 CCR 2695.7(f)). That warning is a reminder, not an extension, and its absence tells you nothing about your own deadline. The injury deadlines by state lookup shows the rules we read and their exceptions. Confirm yours with the court or a lawyer, and don’t wait until the last day.
Your next step
Whatever stage you’re at, keep one file with:
- the claim number, the adjuster’s name and a dated log of every call: what was asked, what was agreed;
- your own policy, open at the section on duties after an accident, and your declarations page;
- copies of everything you send or sign, with proof of the date it arrived;
- every request, offer, denial and fault percentage from the insurer, in writing;
- the time limit to sue in your state, read in the statute or confirmed with the court, and any government notice period.
Questions about where a claim stands go to the insurer, in writing. Complaints about how a claim is handled go to your state’s insurance department, which you can find through the NAIC’s list of state insurance departments; a complaint can get an answer, but it doesn’t set the value of a claim or stop a time limit. Questions about your rights, a release or your deadline go to a lawyer, or to legal aid if cost is the barrier. If a deadline or a government notice period is running, that can’t wait for the insurer.
Sources checked on 6 November 2026.
