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You file the claim. You send the records. You wait. And then- nothing happens. No real offer, no honest back-and-forth — just delays, vague denials, or an adjuster who stopped returning your calls weeks ago.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not imagining things, and you’re not alone. A lot of injury victims hit this wall at some point, and it’s one of the more frustrating stages of a claim because it doesn’t feel like progress in any direction. Below, we’ll walk through why this happens, what New York law actually requires of insurers, and what you can do when an insurer simply won’t engage.
AUTHOR YURIY MOSHES, ESQ
Founding Member of Moshes Law, P.C.
During his years of practice, Yuriy has concentrated in litigation
and real estate transactions as his areas of expertise
Don’t settle for less than you deserve. Let an experienced New York personal injury attorney review your claim and explain your options. Contact us today for a free consultation.
Sometimes this is a calculated negotiating tactic. Other times, it reflects a genuine dispute about fault or the extent of your injuries. Figuring out which one you’re dealing with matters, because it changes how you should respond.
Insurers aren’t obligated to settle every claim that lands on their desk. They’re allowed to dispute fault, push back on damages, and negotiate hard — that’s just how the process works. But New York law does require them to handle claims in good faith, and that requirement isn’t just a formality.
In practice, that means an insurer generally can’t:
Cross those lines, and the conduct can shift from “tough negotiator” into bad faith claims handling — which is its own legal problem, separate from the underlying injury claim.
| Behavior | Tough but Legal | Likely Bad Faith |
|---|---|---|
| Disputing liability | Yes, with reasons given | Disputed with no real investigation |
| Low opening offer | Pretty standard | Won't move even as new evidence comes in |
| Document requests | Reasonable, asked once | Same documents requested repeatedly, no explanation |
| Response times | Some lag during review | Months of silence, no follow-through |
| Communication | One adjuster, consistent answers | Different adjusters, contradicting each other |
One of the clearest signals I look for is consistency,” says Attorney Yuriy Moshes. “When an adjuster keeps changing the reason for the delay, or three different people give you three different answers, that’s rarely an accident. That’s usually when a claim needs to be escalated.”
A well-built demand letter — one that lays out liability, damages, and the evidence behind both — can sometimes be enough to get a stalled claim moving again. At the very least, it puts your position on the record and signals that you’re not going to let this sit indefinitely.
Insurers are generally expected to give reasons for denying or undervaluing a claim. Getting that in writing tends to clarify pretty quickly whether you’re dealing with a genuine dispute or just stalling.
If the conduct looks like bad faith — not just hard bargaining — a complaint with the state regulator can trigger scrutiny of the insurer’s claims-handling practices. This runs on a separate track from your actual injury claim.
When negotiations are genuinely going nowhere, filing a lawsuit is often what actually moves things. It’s not just symbolic — litigation brings discovery, depositions, and rising costs for the insurer, all of which change the math on their end. A surprising number of claims that were stuck pre-litigation start moving again the moment a suit is filed. That dynamic is covered in more depth in settlement vs. trial in New York personal injury cases, including how litigation pressure tends to shift settlement offers well before a case ever gets near a jury.
Filing doesn’t mean negotiations are over — far from it. A lot of claims that stalled out before litigation end up settling during the litigation process itself, often once discovery and depositions make clear just how strong (or weak) each side’s evidence really is. It’s also worth understanding separately what happens if you reject a personal injury settlement offer in New York — rejecting a bad offer is frequently the first move that eventually leads somewhere better, whether that’s a renewed negotiation or trial itself.
Once litigation is underway, insurers are staring down rising costs and real uncertainty about how a jury might see the case. That pressure alone often produces a more serious offer than anything they were willing to put forward beforehand.
It’s tempting, honestly. Financial pressure is real, and a drawn-out fight with an insurer is exhausting in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. But taking an inadequate offer just to make the conflict stop can backfire badly down the road, especially if you end up needing more medical treatment than expected. Before agreeing to anything under pressure, it’s worth revisiting whether you should accept the first settlement offer after an accident in New York — the logic holds just as much for an offer that finally arrives after months of stalling as it does for one offered on day one.
It’s also worth double-checking that the offer wasn’t quietly lowered or pulled somewhere along the way. Insurers do have some legal room to revise offers before you’ve formally accepted — that’s explained in can insurance companies withdraw a settlement offer in New York.
When a claim is genuinely stuck, an attorney brings a few things to the table that are hard to replicate on your own:
Moshes Law handles personal injury cases on a contingency basis, so there’s no upfront cost to getting someone actively pushing a stalled claim forward.
An insurer refusing to settle doesn’t mean your claim is weak, or that the case is somehow over. More often, it just means the next move needs to be sharper — better documentation, formal escalation, or a real willingness to file suit if negotiations genuinely aren’t going anywhere. Knowing what New York’s good faith requirements actually demand, and recognizing when it’s time to escalate, is usually the difference between staying stuck indefinitely and getting the claim moving again.
Strengthen your documentation, send a formal demand letter, ask in writing why the claim is delayed or denied, file a complaint with state regulators if the conduct looks improper, or move toward litigation if negotiations stay stalled.
Not on its own. Insurers can dispute liability or damages — that's normal. But New York requires good faith claims handling, and things like unreasonable delays, misstatements, or denials without any real investigation can cross into bad faith.
There's no hard cap on negotiations themselves, but New York's statute of limitations for personal injury claims keeps running regardless, so it has to be tracked separately from however long talks drag on.
Often, yes. Litigation raises costs and uncertainty for the insurer, which tends to produce more serious offers — sometimes well before the case ever sees a courtroom.
Not without thinking it through carefully. An inadequate offer can leave you covering future medical costs or lost income out of pocket, no matter how long the standoff dragged on before it finally arrived.
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