Insurance policyholders who are considering suing their insurance companies for bad faith need to consider many pros and cons, including the potential for financial compensation. California juries can allocate the money they award policyholders to several categories, such as unpaid policy benefits, attorney fees, and punitive damages. This post addresses punitive damages and looks at … Continue Reading
If your home was burglarized, would you sit back and do nothing? No. You would likely call the police or law enforcement to report the burglary, and hope they find your stolen property. If the police arrested the person who stole your property, would you let that person off without punishment, accountability, and repayment for … Continue Reading
A Florida appellate court has ruled that the 60-day cure period for a Civil Remedy Notice begins when the policyholder files the Civil Remedy Notice – not when the insurance company receives a copy of it.… Continue Reading
Bad faith cases really should be named “lack of good faith” cases because the duty is on the insurance company to act in the utmost of good faith and fair dealing with the policyholder. “Bad” has nothing to do with it. Alabama, however, carries the “bad faith” definition one step further by delineating a cause … Continue Reading
Minnesota Statute section 604.18, commonly known as Minnesota’s Bad Faith Law, permits an insured to add a claim to recover taxable costs based on an insurance company’s bad faith denial of policy benefits. The procedure for bringing a claim under section 604.18 differs from most states. Generally, an insured is strictly prohibited from including a … Continue Reading
Reporter Steve Andrews ran a televised story highlighting that some Florida legislators are listening to insurance company lawyers and lobbyists rather than taking care of their constituents in Consumers Would Take Hit If Insurance Lobby Gets Its Way, and Change in Insurance Law Would Take Away Consumers’ Day in Court. The story references Florida House … Continue Reading
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Tennessee recently ruled and reaffirmed that a Tennessee policyholder is not limited to the statutory extracontractual remedy for an insurer’s bad faith refusal to pay on a policy. She may also be awarded punitive damages under common law. And, further, the Tennessee legislative cap on punitive damages is … Continue Reading
I often get calls from potential clients that have filed a claim with their insurance and have been enraged by an insurance agent or adjuster assigned on the claim. Many potential clients say something like “I just wanted to get the claim settled but the adjuster was acting in bad faith and just wouldn’t listen.” … Continue Reading
The Insurance Journal published an article last week, Sometimes I Disagree with the Blogs I Love. The article had a lengthy discussion of this blog. I really like how it started: Property Insurance Coverage Law – Chip Merlin and team do a great job helping me to understand what’s going on in property insurance law … Continue Reading
Florida legislators have introduced legislation allowing insurance companies to delay, deny, and underpay Floridians’ insurance claims without accountability. National Flood insurance has no such good faith standards nor accountability and the above news story shows how Floridians can be expected to be treated if the Florida legislature passes anti-consumer laws eliminating protections that have been … Continue Reading
Merlin The Moose is a client favorite at the Chicago Merlin Law Group office. We won him at a charity auction last year. He also led me to some creative research uncovering a problem with market conduct studies and the transparency of property insurance claims procedures many insurers keep hidden from their customers and insurance … Continue Reading
Illinois’ solution to an insurance company’s delay, deny and defend tactics is section 155 of the Illinois Insurance Code, which provides an extra-contractual remedy to policyholders whose insurer’s refusal to recognize liability and pay a claim under a policy is vexatious and unreasonable.1 Section 155 of the Code is intended to aid the insured and … Continue Reading
Insurance lobbyist Scott Johnson is a bulldog advocate for the insurance industry. He usually is trying to make policyholders, their attorneys or anybody other than the insurance claims executives and adjusters look bad to support the insurance industry’s legislative efforts. I fell out of my chair when he described his own personal claim and why … Continue Reading
Suspicion runs rampant with some insurance companies when it comes to alleged arson. Even if they cannot prove the policyholder had anything to do with a fire, some adjusters cannot help to look for other ways to deny an insurance claim. In Hayes vs. Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company,1 an insurer was held liable … Continue Reading
A Nebraska court recently ruled that an insured was entitled to bad faith damages after the court found that an insurance application was ambiguous in its language.… Continue Reading
A recent Colorado Supreme Court opinion in Schultz v. GEICO Casualty Company, clarifies the standard for bad faith in Colorado. In the opinion, the court discusses both claims for common law bad faith and statutory unreasonable delay or denial of benefits.… Continue Reading
In a previous post, Insurance Company Acting in Bad Faith? Pennsylvania Protects Policyholders if Facts Are Plead, I discussed the importance of Pennsylvania’s insurance bad faith statute1 and how insurers routinely attempt to avoid litigating the substance of those bad faith claims by filing motions to dismiss alleging pleading deficiencies. Recently, the District Court for … Continue Reading
In the case Biasatti v. GuideOne National Ins. Co., No. 07-17-00044-CV (Tex. Ct.App. Aug. 16, 2018), Steven Biasatti and Paul Gross, d/b/a TopDog Properties, brought suit against its insurance company, GuideOne National Insurance Company for breach of contract.… Continue Reading
The Florida Advisory Commission on Arson Prevention was one of the first organizations I prepared a public presentation for while I worked with Paul Butler in the early 1980’s. Paul gave a speech about wrongful steps insurance adjusters should not make during a fire loss investigation and those where arson was suspected. One of those … Continue Reading
During the recent Summer 2018 RMAPIA Conference, Larry Bache and I had an opportunity to discuss regulations and remedies available to first party policyholders within the RMAPIA states. Continuing that discussion, this post will review the legal remedies available to Idaho policyholders enduring the frustration of a delayed or denied insurance claim. Fortunately, Idaho provides … Continue Reading
In a recent op-ed article published in the Star Ledger, Rutgers Law Professor Jay Feinman debunked the myth that insurance companies have been using for decades to prevent good faith claims handling bills from passing through the legislature. As Feinman noted, insurance companies argue that the Insurance Fair Conduct Act (IFCA) is unnecessary and would … Continue Reading
Insurance companies routinely argue for immunity from their wrongful actions because acts of their customers are not perfect following a loss. Policyholders are not claims specialists. Policyholders generally are not in the insurance claims business much less the civil litigation business which the insurance industry is the number one participant by far.… Continue Reading
Tiffany Tower Condominium LLC sustained damages during Superstorm Sandy. In November 2012, the insured filed a claim with their insurer, Insurance Company of Greater New York, for damages sustained during the storm. Greater New York paid the claim out in December 2012. In September 2014, Tiffany Tower submitted a supplemental claim to Greater New York … Continue Reading
Policyholders need insurance laws which protect them if their insurance company delays, denies or wrongfully adjusts their claim. Attorneys have long recognized that insurance law is a specialized niche area of the law with strange nuances. Attorneys not dedicated to this field of law may fail to appreciate or may even miss small but important … Continue Reading
