Texas is a large, verdict-diverse state: urban counties like Harris and Dallas trend plaintiff-friendly while rural venues trend conservative. No caps on car-accident damages.
Filing deadline
2 years
From the date of the accident, for injury lawsuits.
Fault rule
Modified comparative (51% bar)
Texas bars recovery if you are 51% or more at fault. At 50% or less, your award is reduced by your fault percentage.
Required coverage
$30K / $60K
Bodily-injury liability, per person / per accident.
Texas is an at-fault state operating under modified comparative fault with a 51% bar. If you are found 51% or more responsible for the crash, you recover nothing at all. At 50% or less, your recovery is reduced by your share.
That cliff makes fault allocation the central battleground in Texas claims. The difference between being assessed at 49% and 51% is the difference between a partial recovery and zero, and adjusters know exactly where that line sits.
There is no PIP requirement, but Texas insurers must offer $2,500 in personal injury protection and you must reject it in writing. Many Texans have PIP without realizing it — it pays medical bills and lost wages regardless of fault, and it is worth checking your declarations page for.
Minimum liability coverage is $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident, above the national floor but well short of what a serious injury costs.
The 2-year statute of limitations gets the headlines, but it is almost never the deadline people actually miss.
| Deadline | Window | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Personal injury lawsuit | 2 years from the crash | Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003. |
| Wrongful death | 2 years from the date of death | Runs from death, not from the crash, when the two differ. |
| Claim against a governmental unit | 6 months notice, and often much shorter by local ordinance | The Texas Tort Claims Act sets six months, but many cities impose 45- or 90-day notice requirements by charter. |
| Minors | Tolled until age 18 | Generally two years from the eighteenth birthday. |
Provisions that are specific to Texas and routinely surprise claimants who assumed the national norm applied.
In a pure comparative state, an extra percentage point of fault costs you a percentage point of recovery. In Texas, crossing from 50% to 51% costs you everything. Cases where fault is genuinely shared are fought far harder here for exactly this reason.
Texas insurers are required to include $2,500 of PIP unless you rejected it in writing. Many claimants are told they have no medical coverage when the declarations page says otherwise. Check before paying out of pocket.
Texas hospitals can file a lien against your settlement under the Property Code, and they do so routinely. Those liens attach to the recovery and have to be resolved before anything reaches you, though they are frequently negotiable.
Texas requires at least $30K / $60K in bodily injury liability coverage, uninsured motorist coverage is optional, and fault is decided under modified comparative (51% bar).
Bodily injury per person / per accident. This is the ceiling on the at-fault driver's policy, not a valuation of your injury.
Texas does not require it, which is exactly why so many claims stall at the at-fault driver's minimum limits. Check your own declarations page anyway; most people carry it without knowing.
The at-fault party's insurer pays, and there is no threshold to clear before claiming pain and suffering.
Texas bars recovery if you are 51% or more at fault. At 50% or less, your award is reduced by your fault percentage.
Coverage minimums and helmet requirements are set by statute and change. Verified August 2026 against the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety helmet law table and state insurance department filings; confirm the current rule before relying on it.
National ranges adjusted for Texas's legal climate. Click an injury for the full Texas breakdown.
| Injury | Typical range | Severe cases |
|---|---|---|
| Whiplash | $3K – $25K | up to $100K |
| Back Injury | $10K – $100K | up to $500K |
| Herniated Disc | $40K – $150K | up to $700K |
| Broken Bones | $15K – $100K | up to $350K |
| Concussion / Mild TBI | $20K – $125K | up to $1M |
| Shoulder Injury | $15K – $100K | up to $300K |
| Knee Injury | $15K – $100K | up to $400K |
| Neck Injury | $15K – $125K | up to $600K |
| Spinal Cord Injury | $250K – $1.5M | up to $10M |
| Traumatic Brain Injury | $100K – $1M | up to $10M |
| Internal Injuries | $50K – $250K | up to $1M |
| Burn Injuries | $25K – $200K | up to $5M |
| PTSD / Emotional Distress | $10K – $75K | up to $250K |
| Wrongful Death | $500K – $2M | up to $10M |
| Soft Tissue Injuries | $3K – $20K | up to $75K |
| Amputation & Limb Loss | $250K – $2M | up to $10M |
| Electrocution & Electrical Injury | $50K – $500K | up to $10M |
| Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) | $25K – $500K | up to $5M |
How the claim is built changes with how you were hurt. Each guide applies TX law to that specific kind of accident.
Car Accident
$3K – $55K
Truck Accident
$25K – $350K
Motorcycle Accident
$20K – $200K
Pedestrian Accident
$25K – $250K
Bicycle Accident
$15K – $150K
Rideshare Accident
$10K – $125K
Slip and Fall
$5K – $60K
Workplace Injury
$5K – $75K
Dog Bite
$15K – $60K
Medical Malpractice
$50K – $500K
Product Liability
$25K – $250K
Nursing Home Abuse
$30K – $300K
Electric Scooter Accident
$10K – $75K
Falling Object Injury
$15K – $150K
These apply to every claim, and each one is a mistake insurers count on.
Get treated within 72 hours, and do not skip visits
Treatment delay and gaps in care are the two most common reasons claims get discounted. If you have to pause treatment for money, work, or childcare, tell the provider so the reason appears in the chart rather than reading as recovery.
Photograph everything while it is fresh
Both vehicles from multiple angles, the scene, road conditions, skid marks, traffic controls, and your visible injuries as they develop. Bruising often looks worse on day three than on day one — photograph it again.
Keep a dated symptom journal
Pain scores, sleep disruption, and specific activities you could not do. Contemporaneous notes carry weight that a recollection twelve months later does not, and they are what make non-economic damages concrete.
Document work impact through your employer
A letter confirming missed shifts, modified duty, or lost overtime turns lost income from an assertion into a provable number.
Decline the early recorded statement
You are not obligated to give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer. Early statements are taken before symptoms peak and are quoted back for the life of the claim.
Report every symptomatic area at the first visit
Injuries that hurt less at first get mentioned later, and the delay becomes the insurer's causation argument. List everything that hurts, even mildly.
Six phases, and the first is the longest — nothing can be valued until treatment ends or plateaus.
Nothing can be valued until your doctor says you have stopped improving — maximum medical improvement. Settling before that point means paying for your own future care.
Records, bills, wage documentation, and a written demand go to the adjuster. Assembling complete records from every provider is usually what takes the time.
The adjuster reviews the file, often runs it through claims-evaluation software, and sets an authority range. Complex or disputed claims go to a supervisor or a committee.
Offers and counters. Straightforward claims resolve in a handful of exchanges; disputed liability or serious injury can take many rounds, and sometimes a lawsuit filing to move.
You sign a release ending the claim permanently. Read it — a broad release can extinguish claims against parties you did not intend to release.
The check goes to your attorney's trust account. Liens and medical providers are paid first, then fees and case costs, then the balance reaches you. Many states require the insurer to pay within roughly 30 days of the signed release.
The questions people actually search for on this topic, answered in full.
Two years from the date of the crash. Claims against a city, county, or state agency require notice far sooner — six months under the Tort Claims Act, and as little as 45 days under some municipal charters.
No. Texas is an at-fault state — the driver who caused the crash is responsible for the damages. Texas does require insurers to offer $2,500 in PIP coverage, which pays regardless of fault, but you can reject it in writing.
Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, up to a hard limit. At 51% or more responsibility you recover nothing under Texas's modified comparative fault rule. At 50% or less you recover the balance — so a $100,000 claim with 30% fault pays $70,000.
$30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage — commonly written as 30/60/25. Roughly one in eight Texas drivers carries no insurance at all, which is why uninsured motorist coverage matters here.
Not in ordinary claims against private drivers. Caps apply to medical malpractice and to claims against governmental units, where the Tort Claims Act limits recovery to $250,000 per person for state entities and less for many local ones.
Quite possibly. Texas insurers must include $2,500 in PIP unless you signed a written rejection. Pull your declarations page and look — PIP pays medical bills and 80% of lost wages regardless of who caused the crash, and it does not have to be repaid from your settlement in most circumstances.
Texas settlements track close to the national average. Values vary widely by county — Harris, Dallas, and Bexar juries return notably different verdicts than rural East or West Texas venues, and adjusters price that difference into offers.
Police must be notified immediately if the crash caused injury, death, or more than $1,000 in property damage. If no officer investigates, the driver must file a Crash Report (CR-2) with TxDOT within 10 days.
The questions people actually search for on this topic, answered in full.
Contingency fees typically run 33% to 40%. The common structure is one third if the case settles before a lawsuit is filed, rising to 40% once litigation begins or the case approaches trial. Case expenses — filing fees, records, expert reports — are usually deducted on top of the fee rather than out of it, so ask specifically which structure the agreement uses.
Compensation for physical injury or physical sickness is generally not taxable federally. Portions allocated to lost wages, punitive damages, and interest generally are, and previously deducted medical expenses can be taxable when reimbursed. How the settlement is allocated among those categories has real consequences, so it is worth addressing before the documents are signed rather than at tax time.
The order of payment is liens and medical providers first, then attorney fees and case expenses, then you. On a $100,000 settlement with a one-third fee, $4,000 in costs, and $15,000 in medical liens, the net is roughly $48,000 — and lien negotiation is frequently where the largest gains are available, because providers often accept substantial reductions.
The insurer typically issues the check within two to four weeks of receiving the signed release, and most states require payment within a reasonable period commonly understood as 30 to 45 days. Disbursement to you then depends on how quickly liens are resolved, which can add several weeks.
Usually not. Industry analysis consistently places first offers at roughly half of a claim's fair value, and adjusters are evaluated in part on savings against reserves. Cases involving a genuine lowball frequently resolve for several times the opening number once the file is properly documented — but the first offer is also final if you accept it, because the release closes the claim permanently.
In most cases yes. Health insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, and hospitals hold subrogation or lien rights against injury recoveries. Those liens are frequently negotiable — sometimes substantially — and reducing them raises your net recovery dollar for dollar without any further negotiation with the insurer.
Answer six questions and your range appears right here — free, no sign-up, no email wall. It is already set to Texas, so the modified comparative (51% bar) rule and this state’s settlement climate are built into the number.
Estimated range
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Laws summarized for general education and may change; verify current deadlines and rules with a licensed Texas attorney before acting. Not legal advice. InjurySage is not a law firm. Page updated August 2026.