Talk to a lawyer before you talk to the insurance company.

Nothing up front. Zemsky & Salomon PC handles car accident claims on a contingency fee, so the attorney fee comes out of the recovery and there is no attorney fee if there is no recovery. If the case does not recover, you may still be responsible for costs and court expenses, and those terms are set out in the fee agreement you sign.

New York generally gives you three years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit. Some situations shorten or extend that window, and claims against a city or county can carry much earlier notice deadlines. If the accident is approaching three years old, treat it as urgent.

You may still be able to recover. New York generally allows a claim where fault is shared, with the recovery reduced by your share of the fault, and there is a threshold above which it is barred. Fault is also frequently disputed, and the insurer's first assessment of it is not the final word - that is one of the things worth having reviewed.

You are not required to give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement, and it is worth talking to a lawyer before you do. Those statements are taken early, while the full extent of an injury is often still unknown, and they get used later to argue the injury is smaller than it turned out to be.

Most car accident claims resolve without a trial. Filing suit is sometimes necessary to move a claim an insurer is underpaying, and even then the great majority settle before a jury hears it.

It depends on the treatment. A claim is usually not worth settling until your medical picture is clear, because settling early means settling for less than the injury turns out to be worth. Straightforward claims can resolve in months; disputed liability or a serious injury takes longer.