Why won't the defendant's insurance company pay for my medical treatment before we settle?

The only incentive that the defendant's insurance company has to pay any funds to an injured person is to finally settle the claim. If they paid for your medical treatment they would be helping you document your injuries and relieving your financial pressure. The insurance companies want you to be financially stressed in hopes that you will feel pressure to settle your case cheaply in order to pay your medical bills.

As a Tyler injury attorney I have quite a few times had new clients show up in my office and tell me that the insurance adjuster for the driver that caused the accident is paying their medical expenses. However, when I investigate the matter, I almost always find that the insurance adjuster’s promise to pay the accident related medical expenses is not in writing, that the healthcare providers have not heard anything of the sort from the defendant’s insurance company, and that none of the medical bills have been paid. You have to listen very closely to what insurance adjusters say in this type of as situation. If an insurance adjuster tells you that “we’ll take care of everything” or “we’ll pay for all of your damages” that doesn’t mean that they are going to pay your medical bills along the way. The insurance adjuster would argue that their statement simply meant that they would pay what they felt like was a reasonable amount of damages when the case is settled. You will probably not agree with the insurance company’s opinion regarding a “reasonable amount of damages”.

The primary purpose of an insurance adjuster giving an accident victim any sort of reassurance is to lead them to believe that they can handle the matter on their own and that they don’t need the assistance of an injury attorney. However, the adjusters have been trained to be very careful not to obligate themselves and not to put these kinds of promises in writing.

I’ve often said that you shouldn’t listen to what an insurance company says but rather you should listen to what they do. If they are not already paying your accident related medical expenses then it is unlikely that they are going to do so until you force their hand and that probably means hiring a Tyler injury attorney.