Legal Question in Personal Injury in Missouri

Re: personal injury in a taxicab

It is unclear what exactly you are asking. Telling the insurance company that you are going to file suit, does not stop the statute of limitations period. Filing the suit does.

If you are asking whether you could be civilly liable to a defendant for telling their insurer that you are going to sue the insured, the answer is uncertain. If you are not the plaintiff, but rather a debt collector as defined by the FDCPA, and argument could be made that you have made an improper statement about the debtor to a third party. I am unaware of this type of claim being successful, though I have never researched it.

If you are merely asking whether it is legally improper to inform an insurer that you are going to make a claim, before you make the claim, there seems to be nothing that forbids it. But, it does not satisfy the statute of limitations, and consequently decrease the chances that they will deny the claim.

Good Luck

Re: personal injury in a taxicab

A statute of limitations limits the time within which you are allowed to file a lawsuit. Notifying the insurance company of your intention to file a claim does not toll (stop) the statute of limitations. If you wait too long to file the lawsuit, you lose the right to prosecute that lawsuit. Technically, I suppose that you can always file a lawsuit after the limitations period has run, but the other side's lawyer will certainly have the case dismissed by the court based upon the statute of limitations. If you have a claim worth pursuing, you should hire an attorney.