Taylor, TX Personal Injury Law Firms & Lawyers

If the driver had no insurance, and the owner likewise had no insurance, and if your PIP will cover $10,000 and your UIM will cover $100,000, then as concerns the parties involved in the accident, if your insurance covers $110,000, then the only way that you can expect to recover over and above your own insurance is to file suit against the other parties and hope that they are not candidates for bankruptcy. If the driver was not drunk, and/or under the influence of drugs, and did not deliberately cause the accident, any recovery you might get from her could be discharged in bankruptcy.

It is likely that the insurance company will back off once they know their insured already sued for the same damages. When the other driver's insurance company paid for the repairs, their insured, under the tems of the policy, gave up his right to sue for anything other than his deductible. If he is collecting from your niece, he should be required to reimburse his insurer.

I would require additional information on your situation. However, assuming it was a motor vehicle accident that injured your spine, then in 1989, the Washington State Supreme Court held that a 6 year contract-based statute of limitation applies to UIM claims, rather than a 3 year tort based statute of limitations. Thus, a three-year statute of limitation applies to claims filed to recover damages for personal injuries received in a motor vehicle accident. This may be found under RCW 4.16.080 (2). However, this may not be your situation. The six-year statute of limitations may apply if the person who hit you did not have insurance or is simply underinsured, and you have a policy which contains underinsured motorist protection. This would allow for a six-year statute of limitations. However, an insured must not confuse his or her UIM entitlement with any right that the insured may also have against their own insurance Co. as a third-party claimant. So let us say, for example, if an insured driver is injured while riding as a passenger in his or her own vehicle, and the collision was the fault of an uninsured or underinsured driver of the insured's vehicle, the three-year tort statute of limitations found under RCW 4.16.080 (2) will apply to the insured's third-party claim against his or her insurer. This is so because the person's status as a named insured does not change the applicable statute of limitations when that person files a third-party claim against his or her own insurer. In addition, one must bear in mind that, if you find yourself in a UIM situation, a close review of your policy may reveal that you are unable to file a lawsuit. Rather, there may be other hoops set up by your insurance company that you must jump through, prior to the filing in court. What you need to remember is if these hoops have not been jumped through by you, as you promised you would do when you purchased policy, then the insurance company can force you to do so and courts are helpless in this matter. Bottom line, a close review of your policy, is warranted in all cases. Washington State's legal system has time limits on which one may make a claim. There are many reasons for these temporal elements. For example, over time, evidence may be corrupted, disappear, witnesses memories fade, scenes for which collisions occurred change, and entities dispose of critical records. The best time to bring a lawsuit is while the aforementioned is not lost or corrupted and as close as possible to the alleged negligent behavior. Thus, it has been my experience as an ex-claims insurance adjuster working with defense counsel on litigation files, and now as a plaintiff's attorney; that insurance companies like to drag out the litigation process in order to advance their profit margins and causes because they know that overtime evidence may be corrupted, disappear, memories fade, scenes for which collisions occurred change and entities dispose of critical records which would allow the plaintiff to prove their case. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the injured party to swiftly bring about changes so that the process may begin and fully executed. Generally speaking, these limitations, or for the lack of a better term, time periods begin when a cause of action is deemed to have arisen, and in some situations when a plaintiff had reason to know of the harm or should have known of the harm rather than at the time of the original event. This distinction is important in cases in which an event which occurred earlier on has delayed ramifications.