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:
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:
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.
- 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
- Suing your insurance company
- Can you sue your insurance company?
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- How to sue car insurance company?
- Suing insurance company for bad faith
- Truck driver suing insurance company
- Suing for liability claims
- Sue for breach of contract
- Can you sue for liability claims?
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.
Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 07:56 pm Post Subject:
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
First.. STOP YELLING!!!!Did you ask them what gave them the right to only pay 88% of the loss? This would be my first question. What did they tell you when you pointed out that no where in the contract it states that they could reduce their payment? Have they put this in writing or made an offer yet?
You'd want to file a complaint with the state's Dept of Ins so that they can look into this matter and find out what is going on.
Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 07:10 pm Post Subject: Loss of Home/Agent negligent
Our house burned down in 2007 and we found out our home was very underinsured. It was a second home and our agent recommended the values. Now we are unable to build our home. Can I sue the agent for errors and ommissions? Also, the company, lloyds of london is not an insurance company, it is an investment loss company and I was never told that by my agent, so the laws of ca don't apply to them. They want me to prove any code upgrades from 35 years ago? How is this done? Any help would be appreciated. Also, if you know a lawyer who will take this on, let me know. Thanks.
Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 08:09 pm Post Subject:
Three years ago and you're just now addressing this? Did the carrier pay your policy limit? The thing is you may have under insured the property but you were also paying the premiums for this amount. All policys I've ever seen/read say that it is the responsibility of the insured to review ALL of their coverages. I frankly don't think you have a case at all.
RE: The dwelling being brought up to code. This I assume is in order for them to maintain coverage/policy correct? They absolutely can, all carriers have underwriting rules to follow. Have you checked or shopped your policy with any other carriers?
Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 01:22 pm Post Subject:
Can I sue the agent for errors and ommissions? Also, the company, lloyds of london is not an insurance company, it is an investment loss company and I was never told that by my agent
This is an unfortunate situation that, here in California, has come to the attention of the Dept of Insurance and state legislature. It first surfaced in a big way a few years ago as the state was hit with several large wildfires that caused tremendous ($ Billions) property losses. Many properties were underinsured, and a large number of those as the result of agent misvaluations. Some agents were held responsible for deliberately undervaluing properties and, in some cases, misrepresenting the coverage to the insureds.
Now, all Fire & Casualty Insurance Agents are required to complete a Continuing Education course in Estimating Property Values before they can write homeowner's and commercial property policies. But the regulation probably wasn't in effect at the time you may have obtained your coverage.
It is possibly that you could have an errors and omissions claim against the agent for undervaluing your coverage, although the timing is also bad (more than two years after the loss). But there's probably an attorney out there who would take the case and try to collect.
As for the issue of Lloyd's of London, the agent does not really have a responsibility to tell you that Lloyd's is not an "insurance company", although he should have. However, what you had from one of the Lloyd's syndicates IS a contract of insurance in every respect. Lloyd's is on California's list of approved nonadmitted insurers, and their contracts are subject to California law just like any other insurance contract.
However, since Lloyd's is not an "admitted insurer" you would not have protection available from the California Insurance Guarantee Association, which would only provide a benefit if an insurer becomes insolvent (I know of no Lloyd's syndicate that has ever become insolvent, including the one that insured the Exxon Valdez). That's what the agent really needed to tell you.
Very sorry for your loss. What was your coinsurance valuation?
Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 02:03 pm Post Subject: help!
I was in an "major auto accident" w/no personal injury to myself or child 32 days ago. I had to wait 5 days to get the police report with the person that hit me insurance information,once i recieved that i called his insurance and they said all i would have to do was go to the towing and release my veihicle to them and they would get started asap! I did that the next day and now i'm still waiting to speak with the adjuster 32 days later w/no rental from them or myself . i havent had a car for over a month and no one will speak to me! They have already picked my car up the ver day i released it to them! What should i do? Sue?
Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 02:22 pm Post Subject:
What should i do? Sue?
You could... or you could pick up the phone and call the insurance company to find out what the situation is. I'd be calling 1-2 days after I first spoke to the insurance company. I'd then call each day afterwards. So by now, you should have made about 60 phone calls. At this time I'd also call your states Dept of Insurance and file a complaint.You have actually been sitting around a month, without a vehicle or knowing whats been going on, and not followed up with numerous calls to the insurance company?
You should have also started a new thread.
Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 06:19 pm Post Subject: third party INS
Adjuster is witholding car rental costs, low balling "Total Loss Vehicle", I have complied with receipts, facts, I turned rental in 30 days, scared no reimbursement, None as of today. There insured Fault, accepted Liabilty, I am getting frustrated? advice please
Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 08:46 pm Post Subject:
I did that the next day and now i'm still waiting to speak with the adjuster 32 days later w/no rental from them or myself .
[/quote]Adjuster is witholding car rental costs, low balling "Total Loss Vehicle", I have complied with receipts, facts, I turned rental in 30 days, scared no reimbursement[/quote]I'm confused. You made it sound like you've not heard anything and did not know the status of the claim but now it appears an offer has been made and as such, rental has been cut off.Now it appears the situation is that an offer was made and you felt it too low. You submitted paperwork to show that the value was greater but they refused to change their offer. Is this correct?
Rental can be cut off once a "reasonable" offer is made. Do you have collision coverage? If so, you should file a claim under your own policy and see what your carrier is willing to pay. Perhaps it will be more.
Have you reviewed the other carriers documentation? Was their something incorrect about it? What type of information did you supply to the other carrier to show your vehicle was worth more?
Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 05:45 am Post Subject: insurance investigation
I was cited in an accident that I feel was related to car repairs done the day before. Also none of my air bags deployed. My insurance company won't investigate the previous car repairs or the lack of air bag deployment. They have actually stated it is not worth the money to look into it since my worker's comp is paying the lion's share of the claim. Don't they have a responsibility to find out what happened? Thanks.
Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 06:10 am Post Subject:
If they are footing the bill... no. They can feel free to spend their money as they like.
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