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.
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- Suing insurance company for bad faith
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- 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: Sun Jan 03, 2010 11:18 pm Post Subject:
sue them if they are not fulfilling what they promise.
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 01:33 am Post Subject:
believe me insurance companys do not deny claims without having all their "ducks in row"
MMR, no... but I see adjuster deny claims all of the time when they should not be denied. Perhaps not in the case but it does happen.Had a carrier deny a claim when their insured rear ended my insured and then got out and ran away. They denied it as a crime/hit and run. Huh... the "running" part did not happen until after the damage was done. It had nothing do to with the accident it self. Pretty bone headed denial. They later reconsidered the claim and paid.
Have another (not the same, I agree) where the general contractors carrier is denying the claim as their sub contractor (they say) would be at fault. Another bone headed denial as if the sub contract is at fault... then the contractor _is_ at fault (they are responsible for the actions of the people they hire... granted they can tender the claim... but they are going to be held responsible). Kind of OT but I just wanted to point out that some adjusters don't have a clue.
Again, denying a claim for MMR usually goes _way_ up in the company so it's far less likely that the denial is incorrect.
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 12:59 pm Post Subject:
I agree some bone-headed negligence denials come down the pike from time to time, but as Tcope said OP, NEVER on the voiding of a policy for material mis-rep..an adjuster cannot do this without A LOT of management back up..
Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:45 pm Post Subject: cancelled insurance
I had homeowners and auto insurance with state farm. My son also had his own policy with state farm. My son's driving record is not great. State farm threatened to cancel my policy if my son continued to live with me. My son could keep his policy but mine would be cancelled. I purchased other auto insurance for myself and put it in writing to state farm. I cancelled my policy. Today my son received a refund check from state farm along with a cancellation notice. His insurance was cancelled back on December 22, 2009 which meant my son had been driving without insurance. state farm claim it was per my sons request. My son never requested his insuance be cancelled. Staye Farm screwed up and now they are refusing to reinstate my son's insurance. My son is going to miss work as he has no insurance. My son was not given 30 days notice and was wrongfully cancelled. what can we do?
Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:26 am Post Subject:
My son was not given 30 days notice and was wrongfully cancelled. what can we do?
Has your son been involved in any accidents since 12/22/09? You can raise the argument with SF that the policy should have never been cancelled. If they reinstate they will need that money back as well as any monies to keep the policy active. Your other choice is to take that money refunded and put it toward insurance from now and into the future. There might be some implications of SF reporting that you did not have insurance for 3 weeks, I cannot say for sure if this would be the case. Otherwise your son will have saved premiums on 3 weeks of insurance.Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:58 am Post Subject:
I think clearly they canceled the wrong policy. Hopefully you still have a copy of the letter you sent that referenced your policy number. Along with his cancelation letter that references HIS policy number, (they are different correct?). In this case I'd present this to them and give them exactly ten days to reinstate my boys policy, if they refused I'd prompty file a complaint with my states dept of ins.
Of course as T said, you'll have to give all the money back, but I doubt that's an issue.
Whatever you do don't let that boy drive his car, until he has coverage...Either get it somewhere else or park that car. As to missing work, there are ALWAYS other alternatives to getting to work if someone wants to get to work bad enough. :wink:
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 02:39 pm Post Subject: Suing Insurance company
Hello.
Can you tell me what are the exact forms, at what court I need to file an Insurance company that refuse to pay up the full policy limit with a ridicules reason?
Thanks.
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 02:50 pm Post Subject:
ridicules reason
What's the reason?
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:14 pm Post Subject:
I seriously doubt you can file suit alone, (without an attorney) unless you just want to file in small claims court..What limit? What loss? and (as trench asked) What reason?
I 'think' that ridicules-is "Herk's" sister..
Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 05:40 am Post Subject:
I had an insured file suit for a $225,000. house fire that was denied. Not sure what his legal knowledge was, but his filing on the surface appeared to be professional. Once you read it, you could find errors all over the place. He was filing against the insurance company, my company and me as well as his business partner, mortgage company and a broker. In one suit, he was trying to collect on his loss as well as from his partner for bad busniess dealings and the mortgage company since they foreclosed on him. This thing got kicked back to him at least 3 times and then finally everyone was released from the suit except the insurance company, who in the end defended the case and the guy got nothing.
If you have to ask what forms to fill out, you may want to find an attorney.
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