I stopped for a stopped school.bus traveling in the opposite direction on a 5 lane open highway and was rear ended..the insurance company stated that

It sounds like it liability insurance carrier is denying your claim based on contributory negligence. In North Carolina if you're any degree of fault bringing about your own injuries, you are completely barred from recovery from a third-party. Depending on how long you were stopped, visibility and road conditions, you still may be able to recover under the Doctrine of Last Clear Chance. This doctrine allows recovery by plaintiff who is himself negligent in circumstances where the defendant failed exercise due care when confronted with a negligent plaintiff to otherwise avoid injury to them.   In this circumstance I'm assuming that the highway was divided with a median. There is no duty to stop for school bus on a divided highway. There is a prohibition on stopping in the travel portion of a Highway. There is also the duty obviously to avoid colliding with vehicles stopped on the highway. Even if both of you were negligent, if the defendant had the last clear chance to avoid colliding with you it may still recover. This means you would have to prove that the defendant through the exercise of due care, should have seen you stop in the roadway, had the opportunity to apply his brakes and stop or otherwise change lanes before colliding with you, yet failed to do so.   I seriously doubt whether the liability carrier would ever concede that there insured in the last clear chance to avoid the accident. It is quite likely that you will need to file a lawsuit against the adverse driver in order to have any possibility of recovery. Whether or not an attorney will be able to assist you in this would depend in part on the severity of your injuries as a case like this would involve a significant amount of time and effort to pursue.