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: Thu Feb 04, 2010 05:09 am Post Subject: motorcycle/car accident

I was involved in a car accident in May 08, and as a result I received multiple injuries. I was a passenger on the mc that had full coverage and the guy that hit us was ticketed for making an illegal u-turn causing the accident. His insurance company paid the policy limit but I personally had no insurance which two surgeries later I have not received a dime bc the medical bills are costly. I hired a lawyer and was told that I was only entitled to the policy limits and now I have to sue my sisters umi coverage to get more money. The state of the accident is SC, the guy that hit us is from NC, and the mc driver is from GA, there is some kind of off-set amount that kept me from using the mc policy. What can I do, I am currently still in PT and will be thru May 10, am I entitled to any more money.

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 05:47 am Post Subject:

I was involved in a car accident in May 08, and as a result I received multiple injuries. I was a passenger on the mc...

You've posted this in 2 other threads... I don't think you need to add a 3rd here.

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 03:57 am Post Subject:

I live in Maryland, and was living there during the big snowstorm in early 2010. I rent in the downtown area of a city in Maryland, and do not have a garage to park in, so I had to buy a resident parking permit to park on metered streets. I parked my car there overnight, and during the snowstorm, a really old tree with huge un-pruned branches extending over the street fell, due to a lot of snow on the branch. The branch smashed the top of my car for a total loss. The insurance company says that since I had not complained about the tree before, they were not responsible. I say that city property (the tree) hitting my property (the car) on city property (the street) while I pay to park there (resident parking permit) entitles me to damages. What do you think?

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 04:33 am Post Subject:

I say that city property (the tree) hitting my property (the car) on city property (the street) while I pay to park there (resident parking permit) entitles me to damages. What do you think?

I say, good luck.

If the limb just fell _and_ you could show that the city should have known that it was going to fall, yes. But a snow storm such as the one you mentioned should have not indicated that the one branch you mentioned was going fall. In that all of those things you mentioned are owned by the city does not matter... they don't owe to protect everyone at all times on their property. What you need to show is that they should have known that all of that snow was going to accumulate on the limb and as such, the limb was going to fall. Of course, you then need to show that they had ample time to correct the problem and did not do so.

As mentioned above... good luck. It's just not going to happen.

If I walk onto your property during a tornado and a limb falls and hits me in the head are you going to pay for all of my medical bills out of your pocket? Same situation. You would have done nothing wrong.

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 04:20 pm Post Subject: Car claim

I purchased a car on the 09/01/10 crashed it on 19/01/10, the car was a total loss and I have a receipt fropm the garage i brought it from for £2765.00 and they offered me £1600.00 can I take them to court and sue for the difference??

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 05:56 pm Post Subject:

No, but you can challange the settlement amount. Do you even know what your vehicle is worth?

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 08:18 pm Post Subject: Theft Claim

Back in August my husband's job trailer was stolen from in front of our home. We lost close to $55k in tools and equipment. We had a commercial policy with our insurance agency but when we made the claim were told that the contents of the trailer were not covered, only the trailer itself. We tried to file the claim with the help of our agent through our home owner's policy and have been told that they will only cover $2500 worth of the loss because the items, while purchased for personal purposes were also used for business purposes. We have asked our commercial agents in the past, more than once, about making sure our contents were covered but they would never provide us with a quote. So now we seem to be stuck with a huge loss of items and money that have taken us 10+ years to accumulate and no one seems to want to help us. Is there anything to be done?

Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 08:34 pm Post Subject:

while purchased for personal purposes were also used for business purposes.



I don't see why that would make any difference.

We have asked our commercial agents in the past, more than once, about making sure our contents were covered but they would never provide us with a quote.



I'm sure now you can understand how important that information would have been had you obtained it. I am sure that is frustrating.


no one seems to want to help us



It's not that they don't want to help you, it's the fact that you apparently do not have adequate coverage.

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