Why Two Insurance Companies Are Calling After Your Crash

Attorney Answer

Almost certainly one of them is your own insurer and the other is the insurer for the driver who hit you — and you should be talking freely to only one of them.

The two calls are not the same kind of call, even though both adjusters will sound equally friendly.

Your own insurer is a company you have a contract with. That contract almost always includes a duty to cooperate: report the accident, answer reasonable questions, provide documents. You should return their call.

The other driver's insurer owes you nothing. Its adjuster works for the company that will have to pay you, and part of the job is limiting that payment. You are not required to give that company a recorded statement, and you are not required to sign its medical authorisation forms.

In Alabama that distinction carries unusual weight. Alabama still follows contributory negligence, which means a finding that you were even slightly at fault in causing the crash can bar your recovery completely rather than merely reducing it. A single ambiguous sentence in a recorded statement — "I guess I could have braked sooner" — is worth far more to the other side here than it would be in a comparative-fault state.

A few other callers get mistaken for adjusters: your own health insurer or a hospital's billing service looking to assert a lien, a rental-car or medical-payments unit within your own carrier, and marketing companies that buy accident-report data and call within days pretending to help. Ask every caller to identify who they work for and whose interests they represent.

What you can do

1. For each caller, write down: company name, the person's name, whether they represent you or the other driver, the claim number, and a direct callback number. Do this before answering any questions. 2. Report the crash to your own insurer if you have not, and cooperate with them. 3. Decline to give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer. "I'm not giving a recorded statement right now" is a complete answer. 4. Do not sign a blanket medical authorisation. Those often let an insurer pull your entire lifetime medical history looking for a pre-existing condition. 5. Do not accept or cash an early settlement cheque before you know the full extent of your injuries. Cashing it usually ends the claim permanently. 6. Ask your own insurer, in writing, what coverages you carry — particularly medical payments and uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. Many people have coverage they never use. 7. Put requests and answers in writing or email so there is a record of what was asked and what you said.

⏱ Time limits apply. Alabama sets a filing deadline for injury claims, and your own policy separately imposes prompt-notice and cooperation requirements that can be far shorter than the court deadline. Confirm both — the statutory deadline for your facts and your policy's own notice terms — with an Alabama lawyer now.