Each year insurance companies make billions of dollars in profit by refusing to pay valid claims. The practice is notorious and can be devastating to a policy holder. Bad faith can occur with any type of insurance policy including:

• automobile, business, computer/intellectual property, disability, environmental, fire, health, home, life, personal injury & accident, professional malpractice, property & casualty...

No insurance company is immune from a suit for bad faith, including companies, such as:

Hartford,
State Farm,
Allstate,
Farmers,
Liberty Mutual,
Travelers,
Progressive,
USAA,
Safeco,
CNA,
AIG,
Metlife,
Zurich,
Shelter, and
Sentry.

Bad faith may include any one or more of the following:

• Failure to promptly investigate a claim.
• Failure to properly, thoroughly and reasonably investigate a claim as to liability and damages, if any.
• Failure to fairly and reasonably evaluate facts of liability.
• Failure to offer settlement within a reasonable time after investigation and evaluation in favor of its insured, if such occurs.
• Requiring an insured to pursue a claim against any other party before offering settlement, where settlement is required.
• Delay in payment to await settlement with a third-party insurer.
• Requiring an insured to exhaust the policy limits of a third-party insurer prior to offering settlement in an uninsured motorist claim.
• Failure to fairly and reasonably evaluate damages.
• Delaying a denial which causes emotional distress.
• Attempt to condition payment of an undisputed portion of a claim on the favorable settlement of a separate, disputed portion.
• Unreasonably refusing to waive subrogation so that the claimant could settle with the tortfeasor in uninsured motorist cases.
• Deception.
• Intentional or reckless misreading or misconstruing of claims file documents or of policy provisions.
• Non-disclosure of information.
• Failure to inform insured of additional benefits due under the policy.
• Impeding insured by imposing burdensome documentation demands not required by the facts or the policy.
• Interference with recovery of that portion of the loss which is uninsured.
• Fraudulent, intrusive or harassing investigative methods.
• Attempts to “take something off the top.”
• Unwarranted disputes concerning value of loss.
• Unfounded accusations of arson.
• Wrongful threats of non-payment.
• Creating issues simply to compromise the duty to pay the full amount.
• Designing a scheme to not pay insureds rightful benefits.
• Failure to comply with industry standards.
• Asserting factual basis or legal principle not originally involved in the evaluation as the basis for the denial or for the delay.
• Concealment of facts.
• Use of oppression.
• Treating insureds who hire attorneys as the insurance company’s adversaries.
• Failure to convey settlement demands of adversary in liability cases.
• Attempts to obtain contribution from the insured.
• Altering or changing coverage without consent of insured.
• Biased investigation.
• Failure to reasonably construe the law.
• Dual representation by the same claims person handling conflicting claims.
• Violating the normal procedures called for in the claims manuals.
• Attempting to shift burden of investigation onto lawyer for insured.
• Suing insured to recover amounts paid and taking affirmative steps to harm insured.
• Canceling insured’s policies where insured not at fault.
• Failure to settle a third party’s claims against an insured within the policy limits (if possible) thereby exposing the insured to “excess” liability.

If you are the victim of bad faith and unfair claims procedures, contact us!