Making an At-Fault Driver's Insurer Pay Repairs and Storage

Attorney Answer

You cannot require her insurer to do anything. That is the honest starting point. Your claim is against the driver, and her insurer pays on her behalf if and when it decides she is liable — it owes you no statutory duty to be prompt, fair or reasonable. Meanwhile the storage yard is charging by the day, and that bill is the one most likely to hurt you.

On fault, the traffic law is on your side. Tex. Transp. Code § 545.151(a) requires an operator approaching an intersection to stop, yield and grant immediate use of the intersection in obedience to an official traffic-control device, including a stop sign, and to proceed after stopping only when the intersection can be safely entered without interference or collision. Section 545.153(b) is more specific: "Unless directed to proceed by a police officer or official traffic-control device, an operator approaching an intersection on a roadway controlled by a stop sign, after stopping as required by Section 544.010, shall yield the right-of-way to a vehicle that has entered the intersection from another highway or that is approaching so closely as to be an immediate hazard to the operator's movement in or across the intersection." A citation is evidence that an officer formed that view at the scene; it is not itself a decision about civil liability, and responsibility is ultimately divided as percentages by the trier of fact under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.003.

On her insurance, understand what you are and are not. The prompt-payment rules in chapter 542 of the Texas Insurance Code are written for first-party claims — an insured making a claim on their own policy. Chapter 541's settlement-practice duties run to insureds and beneficiaries. As a third-party claimant against another driver's carrier, you do not get a private action under either. So no letter you write creates a legal obligation for her insurer to pay your storage while it thinks about the claim.

There is also a ceiling. Tex. Transp. Code § 601.051 requires financial responsibility for every vehicle operated in the state, and § 601.072(a-1) sets the minimum property-damage coverage at $25,000 for damage to or destruction of the property of others in one collision. If your repairs plus your losses exceed her limit, the difference has to come from your own coverage or from her personally.

The fastest route, if you have collision coverage, is your own policy. Your insurer pays for the repair now, then pursues her carrier for what it paid and for your deductible. That is usually the difference between a car repaired this month and a car accruing storage fees for another six weeks.

What you can do

1. Get the car out of the storage yard as soon as you can arrange somewhere for it to go. Storage accrues daily, and a liability insurer will rarely pay an open-ended storage bill.

2. Ask the yard, in writing, for its daily storage rate, the towing charge and the running total, and ask what it requires to release the vehicle. Keep the reply.

3. Open a claim with your own insurer today, even if you expect her carrier to pay in the end, and ask specifically whether you have collision coverage and rental reimbursement.

4. Send her insurer a written claim that includes the crash report number, the date, photographs of both vehicles and a written repair estimate. Keep a copy of what you sent and when.

5. Get the officer's crash report from the investigating agency, and note the citation and its disposition.

6. Keep receipts for towing, storage and any transportation you have had to pay for while you are without the car.

7. If the yard refuses to release the vehicle or the storage charges look unreasonable, ask a local lawyer about the towing and storage rules that apply to the facility. Those rules are technical and fact-specific.

8. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts 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, and in Texas that period covers property damage as well as personal injury. When your period started depends on your facts, and this page cannot date it. Have a Texas attorney review the timing, especially if the insurer is slow and months are passing.