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.

Related Readings

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: Sun Apr 10, 2011 05:32 am Post Subject: Groundwater impact

I have a serious situation going on which I took the responsibility of paying for the oil tank removal and the contaminated soil however groundwater was impacted and being that myself and the insurance company had no knowledge of said ust they dropped me immediately and denied to pay for the 3rd party which is groundwater impact. Their response is that they cannot determine the release date of said oil so they will not cover it. I'm wondering is there anything that I can do if possible can you email me bigsing74@GMAIL.com

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 02:35 pm Post Subject:

Who put in the tank and when? They may have been covered by a policy that will pay.

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 09:20 pm Post Subject: Car insurance canceled without knowledge.

My wife was involved in an accident April 6th 2011, We found out that evening, that our insurance carrier canceled our policy April 1st. They said it was for a late fee of $10.00 for the month of Feb. Which we never received any documentation of such. We can only pay online what it says to pay no greater or lesser. Which our payment every month was $221.00. They said they sent notice of cancellation via mail on March 31st, 2011 for April 1st ,2011 cancellation. Now car is damaged, wife is hurt and other car insurance is demanding justification. Can hiring a lawyer to sue our company help? We have all the paperwork to prove that all the payments have been made online in there system.

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 02:42 pm Post Subject: i need help in the worst way

i reported a insurance claim over two years ago from a broken pipe in the ceing. i kept getting the run around from the agent then a year in a differant problem my exghust fan above of stove crash down onto the stove and tile work etc. caused alot of damsge and again i got the run around they have told us we would be getting paid for both of these losses. in the mean time in between my two loses the guy next door to me did work to his House, Land, Wall ect. Because careless the work they had done caused sinkholes and tunnels in the ground making water to come in my basement and flooded it causing alot of damge there.. even though the water damage is on two differant parts of the house I think my insurance is behaving in bad faith just to see whats going to happen next door even though i reported the first claim a year before. they want to settle the 2nd claim first.. please help..

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 07:58 pm Post Subject:

The claims for the damages inside your home (not those caused by your neighbor) should have been paid a long time ago. Those are worthy of a complaint to your state's department of insurance. Most states' laws require claims to be paid within 40 days of determining liability. It should not take two years to figure out if the insurer is liable or not.

As to your damages caused by your neighbor, those are his responsibility, and his insurance company's obligation to pay. You will have to file a claim against him and have him turn it over to his insurance company for investigation and payment. It will not affect your other claims.

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 08:30 pm Post Subject: need to sue my phone insurance

I paid my insurance through Bank. when my phone was damage they asked me to send the damage phone and they send me a wrong network phone. i told them but they are not doing anything about it, after paying my first claim charges and normal charges. How do i go about it

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:20 pm Post Subject:

My car was to tolled by an uninsured driver i live in new mexico so i was found guilty of the accident and was sentenced to pay the city 44 dollars in 30 days. i have liability insurance also my daughter and i suffered injuries and been almost a month and i am still in pain and have doctor appiontments what can i sew my insurance for?

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:56 am Post Subject:

i was found guilty of the accident and was sentenced to pay the city 44 dollars in 30 days.



Traffic collisions are CIVIL TORTS, not criminal offenses, so your post is missing some important details. What were you "sentenced" for? Failure to stop? Excessive speed? Failure to yield (as in, turning in front of a driver with the right of way)?

If you were "at fault" for the collision, even with an uninsured motorist, your vehicle was totalled by YOU, not the other driver. The other driver is not responsible for your damages, but you are responsible for his.

Your auto insurance DOES NOT pay for your injuries unless you have MEDICAL PAYMENTS coverage, and then it would be limited to maybe $5000 per person. If you have collision damage coverage for your vehicle, then your insurance company will cover the ACTUAL CASH VALUE of your vehicle prior to the loss MINUS the depreciation MINUS the deductible.

There is NOTHING you can sue your insurance company for.

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 05:17 am Post Subject:

what can i sew my insurance for?

Is insuring an idiot a crime? Sue for that. Let me know how that works out.

Also, please don't come north.

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 06:22 pm Post Subject: contents problem

I'm having a problem getting my contents money out of my ins.co.We lost everything it's been 9 mo. and still we seem to be getting the run around. We've sent in contents lists that have where when and how much then they send it back to us with different where and cost numbers.We'll send it back with the changes then they say they haven't received it.It's been going like this for awhile.Now we're stuck in a motel witch i'm paying for and i'm running out of time and money.Our depreciation time runs out in july.We've found another house we would like to buy but because the way this is being handled way may not get it.Any advice?

Add your comment

Enter the characters shown in the image.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.