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: Fri Oct 26, 2012 12:03 am Post Subject:

In what country was this product sold? It does not sound like anything sold in the US.

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 02:29 pm Post Subject:

Ok i need ur help i purchased insurane online it asked me did i need insurance on the 26 so i clicked yes but my car was hit head on and there sayin that my insurance dnt start till the 27 thats false advertisement because theres nothing online saying that i would take a full day to get insurance when u purchase on line what should i do :wink:

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 01:50 pm Post Subject: Home Insurance

On July 27 I moved out of my house into a new house. I switched insurance agents on the new home, but retained my agent on my old home. I called them and told them I had moved and the house was vacant. They told me my policy was still good. On Oct 27 my oldhouse was vandalized causing about $10,000 of damage. The claim was denied by the insurance company because the policy has a clause that says vacancy after 30 days nullifies the policy. The agent refuses to make good on the policy despite the fact I had notified them the house was vacant. Do I have legal recourse?

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 01:58 pm Post Subject: Agent forgery.

Life Insurance AGENT forged my name for cash value from policies. The AGENT is HAROLD L. WHITNEY.He had his license revoked in JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI , for stealing. He sold me a polycie with MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE CO..
ALBERT KANDEL
19583 Thomas Ridge Ct.
Chesterfield,MO. 6391
636-728-1247

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 03:07 am Post Subject:

hi my car was stolen 4 weeks ago.....the police found the car 2 weeks ago i went to pickup the car because geico personal ask me to pickup the car my self because the car is under my name....all the inside is broken and looks like some one use my car as a restroom...smells very bad....the problem is the adjuster didn't want to make the car total loss because the repair cost is going to be like $19.000 and the price of the car is $32.000 ...now the problem is that i just received a call from the dealer where my car is being repair....in order to start working on my car we need to wait from 60 to 90 days in order to get the parts for my cay....i owen a nissan quest 2012 my question is there is a way for me to make geico made my car total so i can go and buy a new car ???

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 02:09 pm Post Subject:

is there is a way for me to make geico made my car total so i can go and buy a new car ???

You can try a gun.

Can you "make" GEICO pay more then they promised in the contract? No. You can feel free to take the $19k, add in your own money and pay it off. If you don't want to pay the extra money out of _your_ pocket, why do you think GEICO should? It's not GEICO's fault at all that the manufacture of your vehicle does not have parts made. You may want to complain to Nissan and/or never buy their cars again.

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 04:30 pm Post Subject: non renewal for using un uim coverage

had girl run stop sign 9 2 11 she had the minimum limits i had liability plus 100000 un uim ins that my attorney used then we got letter from 21 century saying they were not renewing our policy i called and the girl said the reason was my wife had accident that they paid 4500 on then the girl ran the stop sign hit us nearly killing us and now i still have broke back my wife has nerve damage brachial plexus damage so we had to accept ins from the ins carrier the girl had at 182.00 monthly payments people does you any way even the lawyer lied and sold us out didnt get us any long term care and all we got was around 45000 for a life time disability sucks and were broke cant afford the filing fees to get the lawyer in federal court for the way he did us

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 03:20 am Post Subject: Home insurance

I had an oil leak from our oil tank that provided heat to our home. The damage to the house was very extensive and resulted in the house having to be lifted and moved and the foundation and surrounding soil to be completely removed and foundation rebuilt. However the repairs that were made were subpar at best and we have been dealing with a leaking basement and leaking plumbing evere since! Our insurance company will not respond to our calls now as they consider the matter closed! What should we do?

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 05:32 am Post Subject:

What should we do?


Did the insurance company come out and do the work? You should seek recovery from the at fault party (the contractor you hired).

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:37 pm Post Subject: Allstate Doesnt Want to pay

Can anyone help me in the right direction. I lost half my roof and half my gutters and part of my chimney during hurricane sandy. I contacted allstate to put in the claim and the rep on the phone said i could go ahead and do work on my house and i didn't not have to wait for an adjustor or take photographs. I was able to secure a roofer 5 days later and he completed the work just in time before the nor'easter storm hit.
The adjustor came 2 and a half weeks later, and after his assessment, the back office adjustor said they were not going to pay my claim b/c I did not have any proof of the damage. The fact that the rep on the phone told me i did not need photos or have to wait for the adjustor, they said was hear say.
They said the only way I could recoup my claim was to go ahead with litigation.
Any ideas?
Thanks for any help.
James

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