It is not unusual for an insurance company to limit or even deny coverage of a claim without proper justification or warning. Not every act of an insurance company with which you disagree is bad faith, but if you have been treated unfairly and have been denied coverage or a reasonable settlement wrongfully, you may have a case for bad faith against your carrier.
 The question is, how do you know? You can always file a complaint with your state’s Department of Insurance, but only by hiring a qualified attorney who specializes in insurance bad faith will you be able to get high-quality advice regarding whether or not the insurer’s actions fall within the definition of bad faith, and whether or not you have a case. Keep in mind that state, not federal law, regulates insurance practices. There is no uniform definition for insurance bad faith. An experienced attorney in this field knows the law, and will be able to assist you.
 In bad faith cases the vast majority of attorneys, including this law firm, will work on a contingency fee basis; that is, they will take a percentage of the settlement or award as their fee. If you lose your case, you pay nothing but their costs for such things as materials, copying, phone calls, etc. Make sure that you completely understand how the fees are to be paid before you hire legal counsel.
When you file an insurance claim with an insurance company, by law, in any state, that company owes you a duty to act in good faith. Simply put, this means that the insurance company must not look for ways to escape its obligation to investigate the claim or to pay you. Doing so would constitute bad faith. Bad faith claims and lawsuits may stem from one or more of a number of actions or inactions by the insurance company from denial of coverage to failure to negotiate a settlement.
Here are some of the typical reasons insurance companies get sued for bad faith:
- Unwarranted denial of coverage
- Failure to communicate pertinent information to the claimant
- Failure to conduct a reasonable investigation of the claim
- Refusal to pay the claim without investigating
- Failure to deny or pay the claim within a reasonable period of time
- Failure to confirm or deny coverage within a reasonable period of time
- Failure to attempt to come to a fair and reasonable settlement when liability is clear
- Offering substantially less money to settle than the true value of the claim
- Failure to promptly provide a reasonable explanation for denial of a claim
- Failure to enter into any negotiations for settlement of the claim
- Failure to respond to a time-limit demand
- Failure to disclose policy limits
For a no-cost, no-obligation evaluation of your case, fill out our free case evaluation form and a top-rated attorney will contact you.
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