A DUI charge helps. It does not shut the insurance company up.

If the other driver got arrested after blowing through an intersection in Spokane, that matters.

It can help prove fault.

It can give your claim leverage.

But it does not mean the insurer will roll over and pay for your bulging disc and chronic back pain. In fact, if they found an MRI from years ago showing any back issue at all, they will beat that drum hard. That is the play.

You see this a lot after crashes on streets like Division, Sprague, or around busy intersections near Francis and Nevada. Someone gets hit, ends up with back pain that will not quit, misses shifts at a fast food job, and then the carrier says: this is old, not new.

That is where the fight really starts.

Washington law does not let them ignore aggravation

Here's what most people don't realize: in Washington, the other driver is still on the hook if the crash made a preexisting back condition worse.

That old MRI is not some magic shield.

If you had a quiet back before the crash and now you have pain shooting down your leg, missed work, trouble standing at the fryer or drive-thru window, and new treatment after the collision, the insurer does not get to shrug and say "already there." A bulging disc on an old scan is common. A lot of people have imaging findings and no real daily pain until a wreck lights everything up.

The insurance company knows this.

What they want is a clean excuse to argue that your current symptoms were coming anyway.

The DUI case and the injury case move on different tracks

Spokane County prosecutors handle the criminal case.

The insurance claim is separate.

If the driver was charged with DUI, reckless driving, or vehicular assault, the civil side may slow-walk things while they wait to see how the criminal case shakes out. That can be useful if the driver later pleads guilty or makes damaging statements. It can also be a giant pain in the ass because your medical bills and missed wages do not pause while the court calendar crawls along.

A conviction helps credibility on fault.

It does not automatically prove every part of your injury damages.

The insurer will still demand your prior records, prior chiropractic visits, old MRIs, and anything else they can use to say your back was a mess before the crash.

Why they care so much about your old MRI

Because back claims cost money.

And Washington's minimum liability coverage is still just 25/50/10. That means $25,000 per person, $50,000 per crash, and only $10,000 for property damage. That property number is laughably low now, and the bodily injury limits are not much better if you have ongoing spine treatment.

So if the at-fault driver carried a minimum policy, the insurer has every reason to slash the value of your claim. One old MRI can become their entire personality.

They will say:

• your disc bulge existed before the crash, your pain is degenerative, your treatment is excessive, and your lost wages are unrelated

That is the script.

Police report disputes are part of the same game

A DUI arrest in the police report is strong, but reports are not perfect. If the other driver later changes the story, or the insurer claims the report got something wrong about speed, signal lights, or where impact happened, they use that confusion to chip away at your claim.

This matters a lot at Spokane intersections with multiple lanes and messy turning movements, where each side suddenly remembers the light differently.

If the report says the driver was impaired, that is good for fault.

If the report is vague about your injury complaints at the scene, the insurer will act like that means your back was fine. It doesn't. A lot of people feel the full spinal pain hours or days later, especially after the adrenaline wears off.

Timing gets weird when criminal charges are still pending

The insurer may tell you they need to "wait for the criminal matter."

Sometimes that is true.

Sometimes it is stalling.

Washington's general deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit is still three years from the crash date, and that clock does not stop just because the criminal case is pending. So the criminal side can be unresolved while the civil deadline keeps moving.

That matters if you are trying to tough it out, hoping the DUI prosecution will somehow settle everything for you. It won't.

And if you are a fast food worker getting hourly pay, every lost shift hurts now, not two years from now when the criminal file finally closes.

What actually makes this kind of case stronger

Not the old MRI itself.

The before-and-after picture.

If you were working regular shifts before the intersection crash and now cannot stand through lunch rush, lift boxes, bend, or sleep without pain, that difference matters. If your records show a long gap with little or no treatment before the wreck, then a sharp rise in care after it, that matters too.

The insurer wants to reduce your case to one image from years ago.

Your job is to force the timeline back into the story: what your back was like before Spokane traffic changed it, what happened at that intersection, what treatment started after, and what never went back to normal.