
Houston car accident injury attorney Steve Lee helps those in and around Houston who have been hurt in car crashes due to no fault of their own. For four decades, injury victims in Houston have turned to Steve Lee to help them get past insurance company delays and denials. By relying on his courtroom experience and command of Texas injury and liability law, Steve Lee has helped thousands of injury victims get the compensation that they deserved and needed to help them get their lives back on track. If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in or around Houston, Texas, contact Attorney Steve Lee for a free legal consultation today.
If your car gets hit by another car, the other driver’s insurance policy is supposed to cover the damages.
Right?
It seems like an easy question, but as a law firm that represents injury victims in Houston, Texas, it has been our experience that it is rarely as easy as that. The weak link in that supposedly simple equation is the insurance companies, all of whom hate the idea of writing a bigger check than they have to.
Some drivers have very comprehensive insurance policies, some have the bare minimum, and some have no insurance at all. All of these scenarios can cause real problems when it comes time to get the damage to your car actually paid for.
Here is how it (supposedly) breaks down:
Hit by Car, Other Driver Has Insurance: If the other driver has liability insurance, this is a good thing. It means that the insurance covers everything that the other driver is legally liable for. In insurance terms, the damage to your car is called “property damage.” So what you will need from the other driver is “property damage liability insurance.”
This is, theoretically, supposed to cover all the damage to your car. The problem is that each state has different minimum liability amounts, so if the damage to your car goes over the minimum amount of the insurance coverage, that could be problematic.
Hit by Car, the Other Driver has no Insurance or not Enough Insurance: This happens more often than you think, especially in Virginia. Our state gives drivers the option to go without insurance provided that they pay an uninsured drivers fee. For a payment of a few hundred dollars, drivers in Virginia can then take our roads, streets and highways with no coverage whatsoever. Drivers who have older cars also eventually get the lowest level of insurance, mainly because the value of their cars isn’t worth the monthly payments that they make to insurers.
Both of these options make for uncomfortable scenarios if you happen to get hit.
If the other driver doesn’t have insurance, it is possible to get payment from them, but in reality, most people don’t have the cash on hand that will be necessary to pay for the damage. It could take months, which won’t exactly help you if you need to get your car repaired quickly.
The smartest option that you can have to protect yourself in a situation like this is to either have an uninsured or underinsured policy or to have collision coverage. If you get hit by someone with either no insurance or not enough insurance, having these options on your policy can keep you from having to wait for an interminable length of time for payment.
Understand that all of these scenarios are theoretical. This is how it’s supposed to work, but once the accident happens and insurance adjusters start dealing with the actual reality of writing a check, things get hairy. And if the accident caused physical injury, that’s when things get really complicated.
Insurance culture is dedicated to paying out less money than they should. Adjusters who get claimants to settle for less than they are actually eligible for are rewarded and promoted. They deny rightful claims, they delay in the hopes that the victim’s financial situation will deteriorate to the point that they will take whatever pittance is offered them, or they simply take their chances in court.
This is why it is so important to have a qualified and experienced accident attorney on your side when you get injured in a crash. You have to understand that with insurance companies, you aren’t in “good hands,” and they aren’t “like a good neighbor.” Their job is to get you to go away by paying you as little as they possibly can. And if that isn’t enough to cover your medical bills, or your lost wages from missing work, or to compensate you for the physical pain that you have gone through, that doesn’t matter to them.
If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in or around Houston, contact Attorney Steve Lee for a free legal consultation today.
Steven M. Lee, PC
5823 Gulf Freeway
Suite 300
Houston, TX 77023
Phone: 713-921-4171
Toll Free: 800-232-3711
Get Directions