Dealing with Insurance Companies After a Texas Injury

Every Texas personal injury case involves dealing with insurance companies — your own and the at-fault party’s. Adjusters are trained professionals whose job is to minimize the amount their employer pays on your claim. They are friendly, helpful, and calm. They are also fundamentally adversarial. Understanding how insurance companies operate — and the mistakes to avoid when dealing with them — is essential to protecting your case value. A Texas personal injury lawyer at McFarlane Law handles every insurance interaction so clients never inadvertently damage their own cases.

What Insurance Adjusters Actually Do

Insurance adjusters — whether from the at-fault party’s liability carrier or your own PIP/UM/UIM carrier — handle dozens or hundreds of claims at a time. Their performance is evaluated in part on how much money they save their employer. When you talk to an adjuster, the conversation is recorded, your statements are documented, and anything you say becomes part of a claim file that is used to evaluate your case. Questions that seem innocent often have strategic purpose: “How are you feeling?” asked early can later be used to argue you were fine. “What were you doing just before?” invites admissions of distraction. “Were you wearing your seatbelt?” plants comparative fault. Adjusters are allowed to lie about what they know. They are allowed to dispute medical care. They can terminate PIP benefits on narrow grounds. McFarlane Law handles all adjuster communication for our clients.

Mistakes That Damage Personal Injury Cases

Common mistakes include: giving a recorded statement before talking to a lawyer (often used to create ambiguity in liability or damages); signing medical releases that give the insurer access to decades of unrelated medical history; accepting a quick lowball settlement before the full medical picture is known; posting on social media about the accident, injuries, or recovery (adjusters search profiles for ammunition); returning to work too early because of adjuster pressure (creates evidence you are “fine”); skipping medical appointments (creates gaps in treatment that adjusters use against you); and failing to identify all potential defendants and all insurance policies (multiple policies often provide more coverage than a single carrier will admit). McFarlane Law flags every one of these risks at intake and helps clients avoid them.

When to Talk to the Insurance Company Yourself

As a general rule: only talk to your own insurance carrier and only about the bare minimum needed to process your claim — reporting the incident, identifying the vehicles involved, and providing basic medical treatment information. Do not give recorded statements. Do not speculate about fault. Do not accept blame even if you were partially at fault. Do not discuss injuries in detail. Refer all questions about liability, damages, and future medical care to your attorney. And absolutely do not talk to the at-fault party’s insurance carrier — their adjuster is aligned against you, and anything you say can and will be used against you. McFarlane Law represents clients with insurance adjusters from day one.

Bad Faith and UIM/UM Claims

Texas law imposes special duties on your own insurance carrier when you make a first-party claim (PIP, UM, UIM, property damage). The carrier must conduct a reasonable investigation, pay undisputed benefits promptly, and treat your claim fairly. Violation of these duties can support a bad-faith claim with additional damages including attorney’s fees, 18% interest penalties, and in extreme cases exemplary damages. UM/UIM claims — covering injuries from uninsured or underinsured drivers — involve unique procedures, statute of limitations issues, and evidence rules that many general PI lawyers don’t understand. McFarlane Law has extensive UM/UIM and bad-faith experience and pursues every available recovery against first-party and third-party carriers.

Related Practice Areas

Related: how settlements work, medical bills, case value. Hub: Texas personal injury lawyer.

Talk to a Texas Injury Lawyer Today

Never talk to the at-fault insurer without a lawyer. Call McFarlane Law before you give any statement. Free consultation. Austin (512) 222-4900, Odessa (432) 803-5000.