Body shop warned me about the other driver's insurance — should I be worried?

Ugh, I went through almost exactly this. The at-fault driver had some tiny regional carrier I'd never heard of, and they stalled for so long that I eventually just filed through my own insurance and let them deal with the subrogation mess. It was frustrating to pay my deductible upfront but I got my car back in like two weeks instead of sitting around waiting. Got the deductible back eventually too.

Small or obscure insurers can be way worse than the big names when it comes to dragging their feet — and they know most people don't know their rights well enough to push back. They'll request the same documents twice, 'lose' things, or just go quiet and wait to see if you get frustrated enough to accept less. Don't give them that opening. Document every call with dates, times, and what was said. Emails over phone calls whenever possible so you have a paper trail.

Worked in claims for years. When a policy is super new, carriers sometimes put a hold on paying anything while they investigate whether the policy was even valid at the time of the loss — like, were premiums actually received, was coverage active, that kind of thing. It's not always bad faith, sometimes it's just process, but it can absolutely take weeks just to clear that hurdle before they even touch your damage claim. If you need your car for work, I'd honestly go through your own carrier now and let them fight it out on the backend.

A couple of things worth knowing: most states have regulations about how quickly an insurer has to acknowledge a claim and how long they have to accept or deny it. If this company blows past those windows, that can actually work in your favor — it may constitute bad faith, which opens up other options. Look up your state's department of insurance website; you can usually find the specific timeframes there. Filing a complaint with the DOI costs you nothing and sometimes lights a fire under slow adjusters.

Not legal advice, but if the liability is as clear as you're describing and the other carrier is stalling without good reason, that's worth a conversation with a PI attorney sooner rather than later. A lot of them will do a free consult. Sometimes a letter from an attorney moves things along faster than months of you calling and getting nowhere. Just something to keep in your back pocket.

Use your own insurance, get your car fixed, get back to work. Yes it's annoying to pay your deductible. But you need your car now, not in three months. Your insurer will go after theirs for reimbursement — that's literally what subrogation is for. Stop waiting on a company that has every incentive to stall.