Motor Vehicle Collision

Late at night in Central Oregon, our client was driving on US-97 near La Pine when a motor vehicle crash occurred involving a pickup truck and our client's car. The investigating agency cited the other driver for DUII and failing to maintain a lane.

From the start, the DUII citation and lane violation shaped the way the case needed to be handled — carefully, and with an eye toward how fault and accountability would be viewed by insurers.

The main issue wasn't whether our client was hurt. It was how to secure a fair result when more than one insurance path had to be addressed, and each insurer treated the case as its own piece of the overall harm.

One carrier extended a $50,000 policy-limits offer for a full and final settlement of the bodily injury claim. In a separate track, another insurer through a third-party administrator negotiated over time before agreeing to resolve for $250,000. The client's own underinsured motorist coverage then came into focus as well, with a $50,000 limits tender discussed in writing.

• The case required coordinating more than one settlement channel to get to a meaningful overall result.
• Settlement negotiations were not straightforward; offers and demands moved substantially before resolution.
• The crash involved serious harm, including fractures documented in the file, which raised real questions about long-term effects and what it would take to truly close the gap left by the collision.

We treated the case as one story with one set of consequences, even though it had to be resolved through separate claims. That meant pulling the core documentation together, presenting it consistently, and making sure each insurer understood they were looking at the same crash and the same injuries — just through a different policy.

We kept the different claim tracks moving at the same time, so one insurer couldn't point to “unfinished business” with another as a reason to stall. We put the same clear narrative in front of each adjuster, tied the injuries and treatment back to the crash in plain language, and pressed for numbers that matched the real impact on our client's life. When one piece reached its limit, we didn't stop there — we used that progress to push the next carrier forward, and then brought the underinsured motorist claim into the overall resolution so the client wasn't left trying to fill the gap alone.

The case resolved with a combined recovery of $350,000, made up of three separate payments.

This outcome came from treating the case as one real set of injuries and consequences, not three disconnected claim files.

A serious crash doesn't just cause pain. It creates decisions — what treatment you can afford, what you delay, what you try to live with, and what bills quietly become louder over time. The combined recovery gave our client the ability to address the fallout from her injuries and to move forward without the same financial pressure hanging over every next step.