California policyholders historically have a very involved and consumer protecting Department of Insurance. Those wishing to file California consumer complaints about slow paying, wrongfully denying or simply bad insurance companies have a fairly easy method to do so.
The newly elected insurance commissioner in California is Ricardo Lara. Here is what he said during his campaign:
As California’s Insurance Commissioner, I’ll work tirelessly to represent the great people of California, not the corporations, the billionaire class, the pharmaceutical or the insurance companies. I plan to work with anybody who is willing to come to the table, but my allegiance will always be first and foremost to the consumers, the patients, our working families, and our most vulnerable communities in our Golden State.
If he upholds his campaign promises, the insurance complaint administrators in his office will be looking to help you.
In California, the complaint is filed online, and here is the link. There are even virtual directions of how to file such a complaint which can be found at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ssq-cACbs3g. My suggestions are to simply follow these directions if you are certain of your rights, are upset with your insurance company’s treatment of your claim and have first given your insurer a fair chance to correct its previous misdeeds.
I usually call for giving the insurance company and its claims personnel a fair and quick chance to fix things because anybody can make a mistake. We should first think about Golden Rule before calling the authorities. Sometimes, those bad insurance company adjusters simply have it to coming to them, and those adjusters need to have the regulators looking more closely at them to prevent the bad apple adjusters from ruining the reputation of good and honest insurance adjusters.
You want to make certain you are not missing valuable claim benefits and remedies available under California laws and your policy. The last thing you would want to do is file a complaint, get a change of heart from the insurer and not get paid everything you were entitled.
If you are not certain of your insurance claim rights or if you have questions about your policy benefits, please do not hesitate to call Merlin Law Group attorneys in our San Francisco or Los Angeles offices.
Thought For The Day
The mornings along the coast where the fog and mist meet with the salty spray of the seas is one of my favorite smells. I love the smell in the evergreen forest just after it rains – The Redwood Forest in California has the coast, too, so you have the best of everything!
—Paul Walker
Song For The Day
