Unequal Settlement Offers to Two Claimants From One Crash

Attorney Answer

Nothing in Texas law requires the other driver's insurance company to make you an offer, to make it at the same time, or to make it in the same amount as anyone else's. Two people hurt in one crash have two separate claims, and an insurer evaluates them separately. Silence on your claim is common, and it is not a ruling on whether your claim is good.

It helps to know whose side that insurer is on. Texas insurance law draws a hard line between an insurer's own policyholder and someone claiming against its policyholder. The prompt-payment rules in Tex. Ins. Code ch. 542 apply to first-party claims, meaning claims by an insured under that insurer's own policy. The settlement-practice duties in Tex. Ins. Code ch. 541 run to insureds and beneficiaries. As a person claiming against the other driver's policy, you are neither, so those chapters do not give you a private claim against that insurer for how it handles or delays your file. And you cannot bring the insurer into a lawsuit directly before liability is established.

What does not change is the underlying claim against the driver. Tex. Transp. Code § 545.062(a) requires a following driver to maintain an assured clear distance so that the driver can safely stop without colliding with the vehicle ahead, and § 545.351(b)(2) requires control of speed to avoid a collision with a vehicle lawfully on the road. Responsibility is still allocated under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001, which bars recovery by a claimant more than 50 percent responsible, with damages reduced by the claimant's own share under § 33.012(a).

One caution about the offer that did arrive. An early number, before treatment is finished, is an offer to close the file. Signing the release ends that claim, including for care that turns out to be needed later. There is no legal obligation to accept it.

What you can do

1. Notify the other driver's insurer in writing that you are also making a claim, and ask for your own claim number. An offer to one person is not a claim opened for another.

2. Ask that insurer, in writing, to confirm the policy's per-person and per-crash bodily injury limits.

3. Finish and document your medical care. Keep the emergency room records, follow-up visits, bills, and any work you missed.

4. Ask your own insurer whether your policy includes personal injury protection, which Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.152 requires be provided unless it was rejected in writing, and which pays medical expenses regardless of fault.

5. Do not sign a release or cash a settlement check for either of you until the full extent of both injuries is known.

6. Ask a Texas personal injury attorney to review the offer already made and the silence on yours before either of you responds. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with someone who can ask you questions is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) generally allows two years from the day the cause of action accrues to sue for personal injury and for property damage. An insurer's delay does not extend that deadline. Because the accrual date turns on your facts, have a Texas attorney confirm it rather than counting from a date yourself.