Hit-and-Run Vehicle Identification and Uninsured Motorist Coverage in Texas

Attorney Answer

The reason you are getting nowhere with that insurance company is that it does not owe you anything. In Texas, an insurer's settlement duties run to its own policyholders and beneficiaries, not to a stranger making a claim against its insured. The coverage that does owe you something is your own uninsured motorist coverage — and because the truck actually struck you, you meet the element that defeats most hit-and-run claims.

Take the other insurer first, so you stop spending energy there. Tex. Ins. Code § 542.051(2) defines a claim, for the prompt-payment subchapter, as a first-party claim that is made by an insured or policyholder under a policy or contract, or by a beneficiary named in the policy or contract, and that must be paid by the insurer directly to the insured or beneficiary. Tex. Ins. Code § 541.060(a) frames the unfair settlement practices as practices with respect to a claim by an insured or beneficiary. You are neither. So the prompt-payment and unfair-settlement provisions people usually reach for give you no private leverage against the other driver's carrier, and a page that promised you otherwise would be doing you harm. That carrier can also decline to confirm coverage on a vehicle you have not identified, which is what is happening.

Your own policy is different. Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.101(b) prohibits an insurer from delivering or issuing for delivery in this state an automobile liability policy unless it provides uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage in the policy or supplemental to it, and § 1952.101(c) provides that the required coverage does not apply if any insured named in the policy rejects it in writing. Section 1952.101(a) describes the coverage as protecting insureds legally entitled to recover from owners or operators of uninsured or underinsured motor vehicles for bodily injury, sickness, disease, or death, or property damage. Unless someone in your household signed a written rejection, it should be there.

Here is the trap this kind of claim usually fails on, and you avoid it. Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.104(3) requires, where the owner or operator of the vehicle causing the injury or damage is unknown, that actual physical contact must have occurred between the vehicle owned or operated by the unknown person and the person or property of the insured. A truck that hit you and left satisfies that. A near miss would not.

The driver's own conduct is separately unlawful. Tex. Transp. Code § 550.023 required that operator to give his name and address, the registration number of the vehicle he was driving, and the name of his motor vehicle liability insurer to any person injured or to the operator or occupant of a vehicle involved, to show his driver's license on request if available, and to provide reasonable assistance to anyone injured. Leaving instead of doing that is why the police report matters and why the investigation should continue.

What you can do

1. Open an uninsured motorist claim with your own insurer, in writing, today. Send the crash report number, the partial VIN, the plate you gave police, and your photographs.

2. Ask the investigating police agency, in writing, to follow up on the vehicle identification. They can run a partial VIN and registration records against the plate; you cannot.

3. Get a certified copy of the crash report and keep every letter and claim number from both insurers.

4. Keep all medical records and repair estimates in one file, and photograph the damage before repairs.

5. Ask a Texas attorney about identifying the truck and its owner and about your uninsured motorist claim. This is the part where a lawyer has tools you do not.

*Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts — the crash report, the partial VIN and your own declarations page — is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.*

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) allows two years from the day the cause of action accrues to bring suit for personal injury or for injury to property. Your own policy also carries notice and proof conditions on an uninsured motorist claim, and those can be much shorter than any statute. When these periods started depends on your facts, so have a Texas attorney review the dates rather than counting from a page like this.