How to sue an insurance company?

by ty_ger88 » Fri Sep 14, 2007 02:20 pm

Many a times you may be unhappy with your insurance company for not paying you your dues or for delaying your payments or for any other reason. Your insurance company does not always have the upper hand. There are laws to protect you if you have a dishonest insurer.

When can you sue your insurance company?

You can sue your insurance company on grounds of:
  • Bad faith and
  • Breach of contract

If your insurer tries to trick you by not paying up a legitimate claim you can put up a civil suit against the company for having acted in bad faith. A company shows bad faith when it unreasonably denies a legitimate claim. This may mean that:
  • The company has failed to carry out proper investigations
  • Undue delay in processing a claim
  • Disregarding the rights of the policyholder
  • Inadequate compensation provided against claim filed

You can sue your insurance company for the full amount of benefits that has been denied to you as well as for any economic loss or emotional distress that you may have had to suffer as a result of the refusal. If your insurance company has been dishonest you may also get punitive damages. This is a means to make the insurance company behave more responsibly in future correspondences.

It is good to keep all paper works organized so that you can find them as soon as you need them. You may think of an old receipt as unimportant but it might hold great importance when you have a case standing against your insurer for bad faith or breach of contract.

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I'm confused, please help. Here's my story and question. I'll try to make it short. My car was hit about a month ago. I was not in the car. It was parked on the side street. The driver of the truck that hit me left a note with all of his information. Now, it has been almost a month, and his insurance is not doing much. At first, they promised to have the damage estimated, but then nothing was sent to the car shop where my car located. I ended up going through my own insurance company. The problem is before I went with my insurance company, I had rented a car and had discussed this with the other insurance company. They said they would reimburse me all the fees. Now, they're not answering my calls. They keep on telling me that the agent is busy and will get back to me. It has been 4 days since I faxed in my car rental bill. What can I do? Can I sue them? Would you tell me how to sue an insurance company? The bill was paid for by my credit card, and I don't want to owe interests on it. Please help. Thanks.

Total Comments: 380

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:29 pm Post Subject: having to sue our insurance company for unpaid claims

my hubsand fell in 2009 at our home,broke his L4 and L5 in his lower back.was off work and all that for almost 2 yrs and only 1 claim was paid.theres alot more to this story.but short story is we have to file bankruptucy and our home is in foreclosure due to my hubsand being off work and insurance company not paying claims.

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:41 pm Post Subject:

See my sig and you are making a statement?

What other carrier should be paying and why?

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 04:58 pm Post Subject:

my hubsand fell in 2009 at our home


OK, fine, we understand this is not a Workers' Compensation loss.

DId you have health insurance at the time? Yes? Then that insurance paid for his medical expenses.

Did your husband have a personal Disability Income policy? No? Then you have received 100% of the compensation to which he was entitled.

Did your husband apply for Social Security Disability benefits? What was the determination? Disabled or not?

If not disabled under Social Security's definition of disability, what is preventing him from working?

About to lose your home? Perhaps President Obama might be willing to whip up some more of his magic money just for you.

I don't think you have any legitimate complaints against any insurance companies.

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 08:12 pm Post Subject: auto insurance

i had an accident in my moms car but im not excluded, My aunt who has a similar name to me is but they are unwilling to pay for the damage, the car is totaled. can we sue them for that?

Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 05:08 am Post Subject:

Of course you can. I guess you can prove very easily that you and your aunt aren't the same person. Then why won't the insurance company pay for the loss?
Though you haven't mentioned who's fault the accident was. If it was the other driver's fault, then his insurance should pay not yours. But then again you can ask for your insurer’s assistance or choose to subrogate.

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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 06:54 pm Post Subject: Failure to pay out on Home lost in fire

my friend lost his house back on 12-23-09 when out of town from a fire... He just finished remodeling it a few months prior and had all gas shut off while out of town. The insurance company led him on for over a year saying that they were researching and investigating the fire and materials used .... they sent him a letter every 30 day's to stay on course then on the 1 year to date sent him a compete denial of claim... they said it was due to him not having adequate info on materials used... all recipets were lost in the fire when the house burnt. they have led him on and on and now he does not know where to go or what to do and is out over 200 K in the home value of his remodel and rental fees of places to live. Now is being threatened by the county because he has no house on the property and they are wanting to evict him from it....

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 05:45 am Post Subject:

File a complaint to the state insurance department or contact National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). If necessary get help and hire a lawyer if it suits your finances.

Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 03:08 am Post Subject: Life Insurance

I have a universal Life Insurance from New York Life. The insurance was issued as "Standard class 9" considering smoker. The insurance agent promised rate reduction if quit smoking. Accordingly I have quit smoking more than a year and applied for reduction of rate to NYL. NYL carried out medical examination finds no trace of Nicotine substance to consider me as a smoker. Recently in a letter NYL without giving a specific reason refuse to consider reduction of rate of insurance. Beath benefit of insurance is 1,000,000.00. Pl advise if I have a case?

Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 05:03 am Post Subject:

You may further communicate with the insurance company as to why won't they offer the discount you are entitled to?
if it doesn't work consider shopping around and switch companies to get a health insurance with a non-smoker rate, since you've very wisely quite smoking. This according to me would be a better option than suing the company, that of-course after considering the other facts such as your present age and health conditions.

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