The adjuster who calls you two days after a wreck on I-30 is not calling to check on you. That call is the first step in a claims process that has already started working against you, and most injured Arkansans do not realize it until the offer arrives.
The most protective thing you can do is slow the conversation down and get advice before you answer questions, sign forms, or accept money.
Arkansas roads give insurance companies plenty of practice, since the Arkansas Department of Public Safety reported 563 traffic deaths in 2024 and 569 in 2025, and ARDOT notes that the number of crashes on Arkansas roadways has climbed 18 percent since 2015.
Many of those crashes turn into insurance claims, and the people handling those claims do this all day, every day. You are doing it for the first time.
The Adjuster Is Friendly, and That Is the Job
The other driver’s adjuster represents the insurer’s interests, not yours, and the insurer has an economic interest in controlling the cost of a claim.
That does not make adjusters villains, and many of them are decent people doing what their employers measure them by.
But a friendly call is still a claims-handling call, and the questions that sound casual usually are not. How are you feeling? Are you doing okay? Did the other car come out of nowhere?
A cheerful “I’m doing fine, thanks” said out of politeness while you are on pain medication can be quoted back to you eight months later as proof your injuries were minor.
Not Every Adjuster Is on the Other Side
Injured Arkansans usually assume one insurance company is involved in their case, when more than one policy or coverage may apply.
The rules change depending on whose policy is paying, and so does the leverage you have.
| At-Fault Driver’s Liability Carrier | Your Medical Payments Coverage | Your UM/UIM Coverage | |
| Who pays | The other driver’s insurer | Your own insurer | Your own insurer |
| What it covers | Your damages, subject to policy limits, coverage defenses, and fault allocation | Medical bills up to at least $5,000 | Your damages when the at-fault driver has no coverage or not enough |
| Do you owe a recorded statement | No | Cooperation is required by your policy, but the scope is limited | Cooperation is required by your policy |
| Does your fault matter | Yes, and your percentage reduces or bars recovery | No, it pays regardless of fault | Yes, the other driver’s liability still has to be shown |
| Remedy for unreasonable delay | Not directly available to you | 12% penalty plus attorney’s fees, if statutory conditions are met | 12% penalty plus attorney’s fees, if statutory conditions are met |
The medical payments column is the one most Arkansans never use, and it is often the fastest money available to them.
Arkansas law requires auto liability policies issued in the state to include first-party medical and hospital benefits of at least $5,000 per person for expenses incurred within 24 months of the accident, along with income disability and accidental death benefits, unless that coverage was properly rejected.
That money pays without regard to fault, subject to narrow statutory exclusions such as intentionally self-inflicted injury or injury caused while committing a felony or fleeing arrest.
If you are sitting at home avoiding the doctor because you are afraid of the bill, pull out your declarations page and check, because this coverage applies unless the named insured rejected it in writing.
Recorded Statements: Say No, Politely
The other driver’s insurance company will ask for a recorded statement, often within the first week.
You have no legal duty to give one to the other side’s carrier, and there is rarely a good reason to.
A recorded statement locks in your account of the crash and your symptoms at the exact moment you know the least about both.
You have not seen the MRI yet, and you may not know that the numbness in your hand is a cervical disc problem.
You say your neck is a little sore because that is what you feel on day three, and that sentence can later be used to challenge the severity or progression of your injuries.
Adjusters are also trained to ask questions that invite you to guess about speed, following distance, and reaction time.
In a state that applies modified comparative fault with a 50 percent bar, a guess that gets you assigned 20 percent of the blame costs you 20 percent of your recovery, and a guess that gets you to 50 percent costs you everything.
Your own insurer is a different situation, because most policies contain cooperation duties and flat refusal can create a coverage problem, though whether a recorded statement specifically is required depends on your policy language.
The right move there is having someone prepare you and sit in on the call.
The Fast Offer Is Not Generosity
A check that arrives before you have finished treating is a bet, and the insurance company is not the one taking the risk.
The problem is the timing, because an offer made before you have finished treating asks you to price an injury nobody has finished diagnosing.
Once you sign a general release, the claim is generally closed, and it stays closed even if you need surgery six months later.
An oral settlement may also be enforceable in Arkansas if the parties actually reach agreement on the required terms, so do not assume nothing counts until papers are signed.
The Three Mistakes That Cost Arkansans the Most
Ramez Shamieh, Founder of Shamieh Law, puts it plainly:
“The biggest mistake I see people from Arkansas make after an accident is speaking to the insurance company. Insurance companies are designed to minimize claims, and they know how to get people to say things they shouldn’t. It is crucial not to agree to any settlement over the phone, because that agreement is binding. Minimizing communication with the insurance company is paramount.
The second mistake we see is people going on social media and posting about all kinds of things. That only hurts the claim, and it can be used against you at trial.
The third mistake is not listening to your lawyer and not listening to your doctors. Our job is to get you better and get you paid, and if you don’t listen to us, you’re not going to get better, and you’re not going to get paid. It’s the same with the doctors. A doctor’s job is to help you get better and then help you get paid by documenting the records. Those are the three biggest mistakes we see from people in Arkansas after a wreck.”
The social media point deserves more attention than it usually gets, because insurers and defense counsel may review publicly available posts.
A photo of you at a Razorbacks game, a check-in at a Fayetteville restaurant, or a comment about helping a friend move becomes an argument that you are not really hurt.
None of that proves anything about your pain, and it does not have to, because it only has to plant doubt.
Gaps in treatment do the same kind of damage. If you skip physical therapy for five weeks because work got busy or you could not get a ride into Little Rock, the adjuster may point to that gap as evidence your symptoms were less severe or had already improved.
Broad Medical Authorizations Are Not Routine Paperwork
Somewhere in the stack of forms an adjuster sends will be a medical release, and it is worth reading what it actually authorizes.
Some authorizations are written broadly enough to hand the insurance company your entire medical history rather than the records connected to this crash.
Once they have ten years of records, they will look for anything that lets them argue your back pain started long before the collision, and a prior chiropractor visit, an old workers’ compensation claim from a poultry plant job, or a note about a sore shoulder becomes the foundation of a causation defense.
Do not sign a blanket release without reviewing its scope, because a narrower authorization limited to injury-related records within a defined time period is often appropriate.
Delay Is a Strategy, and Arkansas Sets Deadlines
Time pressure works against the injured person and for the insurance company, because you have bills due now and they do not. Arkansas does put some structure around this.
Under Arkansas Insurance Department Rule 43, an insurer must acknowledge notice of a claim within 15 working days and complete its investigation within 45 calendar days unless it cannot reasonably do so, in which case it has to explain why more time is needed.
Arkansas law also defines unfair claim settlement practices to include failing to act promptly on claim communications, refusing to pay without a reasonable investigation, failing to attempt a fair settlement once liability is reasonably clear, and forcing people to sue by offering substantially less than they eventually recover.
Two limits are worth knowing, because this is the part that gets oversold: those definitions generally apply to conduct committed often enough to show a general business practice, and Arkansas courts have generally treated the Trade Practices Act as a regulatory tool enforced through the Insurance Department rather than a statute that creates a private lawsuit on its own.
Documenting the delay still matters, because a written record of ignored calls and unanswered letters gives your attorney leverage and gives the Insurance Department something concrete if a complaint becomes appropriate.
What Arkansas’s Direct Action Statute Actually Does
This one gets misdescribed constantly, so it is worth being precise. Arkansas has a direct action statute at Ark. Code § 23-79-210, and it is narrow.
It lets an injured person sue a liability insurer directly when the insured entity is not subject to a tort suit, which covers certain cooperative nonprofit corporations, municipalities, school districts, and improvement districts that carry liability coverage.
It is a workaround for immunity, not a general right to sue the other driver’s insurance company by name, so if a private motorist hits you in Jonesboro, you still sue the driver and the driver’s insurer defends and pays within policy limits.
But if you are injured by a vehicle owned by a rural water association, a school district, or a municipal department, this statute can be the difference between having a claim and having no remedy at all, provided the entity falls within the statute, is not subject to tort suit, and actually carries liability coverage.
That last condition matters, because the statute does not require these entities to carry insurance in the first place.
It is worth checking in rural Arkansas counties, where public entities and cooperatives operate vehicles on the roads that account for most of the state’s crash deaths.
Bad Faith in Arkansas Is a High Bar
People use the phrase “bad faith” loosely, and Arkansas courts do not.
To win a bad faith tort claim in Arkansas, an insured suing their own insurer generally has to prove dishonest, malicious, or oppressive conduct carried out with a state of mind marked by hatred, ill will, or a spirit of revenge.
This is not a claim an injured person normally brings against the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
Mere negligence or bad judgment is not enough, and denying a claim by itself does not create the tort, because there has to be affirmative misconduct.
First-party claimants have a more practical tool available to them. When your own insurer fails to pay a loss within the time the policy specifies after demand, Ark. Code § 23-79-208 allows recovery of a 12 percent penalty on the amount of the loss plus reasonable attorney’s fees.
The remedy is conditional rather than automatic, and if you recover less than you demanded, the recovery generally has to land within 20 percent of the demand for the penalty and fees to apply.
Even so, that statute changes the math on a stalled underinsured motorist claim in a way a general bad faith threat never will.
It also explains why underinsured motorist coverage matters so much, since the Insurance Research Council found that 33.4 percent of drivers nationwide were uninsured or underinsured in 2023, a 10 point jump since 2017.
Act 28 Changed What Your Medical Bills Are Worth
Arkansas passed Act 28 of 2025, formerly HB 1204, and the new collateral source law took effect on August 5, 2025, narrowing what you can recover for past medical expenses.
Recovery of past medical costs is now generally limited to amounts actually paid by or on behalf of the injured person, or amounts that remain unpaid and for which the injured person or a third party is legally responsible, rather than the full billed charges.
The Arkansas Supreme Court reinforced that shift on June 4, 2026, when it adopted Arkansas Rule of Evidence 412, which makes evidence of medical costs inadmissible to prove the reasonable value of past care unless those costs were paid or remain legally owed.
In practice, the sticker price on a hospital bill is no longer the number that drives past medical damages in most Arkansas cases, though future medical expenses are a separate question.
Adjusters know this, and it has given them a new argument for cutting offers where health insurance paid a discounted rate.
What it means for you is that billing records, lien documentation, and what was actually paid versus written off have become central evidence, and building that record correctly from the start is far easier than reconstructing it later.
Protecting Your Claim From Day One
A handful of concrete steps consistently make a difference in Arkansas injury claims:
- Report the crash to your own insurer, but decline a recorded statement to the other side’s carrier until you have talked to a lawyer
- Set your social media accounts to private and stop posting about your activities, your health, and the crash
- Ask your own insurer to open a medical payments claim so treatment bills start getting paid
- Keep every appointment, and tell your doctor about every symptom rather than only the worst one
- Limit any medical authorization to injury-related records within a defined time frame
- Write down the date, time, and substance of every call with an adjuster
None of this requires legal training, and all of it makes a claim harder to devalue. The moment a firm sends a letter of representation, the calls stop coming to you and start going somewhere else, which removes most of the ways a claim gets damaged.
In serious crashes, especially those involving commercial trucks on I-40 and I-30, the rest of that work is moving fast to preserve time-sensitive evidence, including electronic logging device data, engine control module downloads, dash camera footage, and maintenance records.
Federal rules require carriers to keep ELD records for only six months, and there is no single federal retention period covering every onboard camera or engine module, so absent a preservation demand, this material can be gone before a claim gets serious.
Pulling and analyzing that data quickly can help resolve disputed questions about speed, hours of service, braking, vehicle condition, and driver conduct.
Talk to Someone Before You Talk to the Adjuster
The insurance company had a plan for your claim before you knew you had one. You just have to stop giving them free material.
Shamieh Law has recovered over $300 million for injured people and their families, and we treat every client the way we would treat family, because for us that is not a slogan.
We are direct about what your case needs, honest about what it is worth, and we start working immediately instead of adding you to a pile.
Our Little Rock personal injury attorneys handle the adjusters so you can handle getting better.
Call 501-361-1334 for a free consultation.
You pay nothing unless we win.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to give the other driver’s insurance company a recorded statement in Arkansas?
No. You have no legal duty to give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s insurance company, and you can decline politely without hurting your claim. Your own insurer is a different matter, because most auto policies contain a cooperation clause requiring you to assist with the investigation of a claim under your own coverage. Even then, you can ask that the statement be scheduled when your attorney can participate, and you can keep the discussion to the subjects your policy actually requires.
How long do I have to file an injury claim in Arkansas?
Arkansas generally applies a three-year limitations period to personal injury actions, and ordinary wrongful death claims generally follow the same three-year period. Shorter deadlines apply in some situations, such as medical injury claims, and special procedural and timing rules can apply to certain government-related claims. Those exceptions are the part that catches people, and evidence in serious crashes disappears long before any deadline arrives. Waiting until the end of the period is a poor strategy even when the calendar technically allows it, and an early conversation with a lawyer costs nothing while preserving options that quietly expire.
Will using my own medical payments coverage hurt my case?
Medical payments coverage is first-party coverage that pays regardless of who caused the crash, and Arkansas law requires it to be included in auto liability policies unless it was properly rejected. Using it does not require you to prove fault and does not by itself eliminate your claim against the at-fault driver, though the carrier that paid may assert a reimbursement or subrogation interest that affects how a later settlement is distributed. For most injured people the far bigger risk is skipping treatment because of cost, since gaps in care are one of the most effective arguments an adjuster has for reducing a claim.
What should I do if the insurance company stops responding?
Document everything and put your follow-up in writing. Arkansas Insurance Department Rule 43 requires insurers to acknowledge a claim within 15 working days and to complete their investigation within 45 calendar days unless they explain why more time is needed. A written record of unanswered calls and letters is what makes a delay provable rather than just frustrating, and it gives your attorney something concrete to work with. If your own insurer is the one stalling on a loss covered by your policy, the 12 percent penalty and attorney’s fee provision in Arkansas law can change how seriously that file gets treated.
Can I still recover if I was partly at fault for the crash?
Yes, as long as your share of the fault is less than the fault of the party or parties you are claiming against. Arkansas follows a modified comparative fault rule with a 50 percent bar, so a claimant found equally or more at fault recovers nothing, while a claimant found partly at fault has the award reduced in proportion to that percentage. This is exactly why adjusters ask speculative questions about speed, following distance, and reaction time, because every percentage point they can assign to you comes straight off your recovery.
Does it matter if I do not have a driver’s license or legal immigration status?
Neither your immigration status nor the lack of a valid driver’s license automatically bars a claim for injuries caused by someone else’s negligence. Many people in Arkansas never pursue legitimate claims because they assume otherwise, and insurance companies are not in the habit of correcting that assumption. Your own driving conduct can still affect how fault is allocated, and immigration or work authorization can raise case-specific questions about certain damages such as lost earnings, but none of that decides whether another driver was careless. A lawyer can explain how your particular circumstances affect your case at no cost to you.