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.

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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: Mon Dec 02, 2013 05:16 pm Post Subject:

Because I have a point on my drivers license

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 06:38 am Post Subject:

Point removal is possible from your license if you have already added some points (you haven’t said the figure, nor you did say the state you live in). To do so you can attend a traffic school and completing the course will allow you to qualify for some points. You can even get enrolled in a Driver Improvement Program every two years to subtract some more points.

Assuming you are in CA, the best advice would be to make arrangements with the court. Get yourself enrolled with a court-approved traffic school. Make sure this is approved and recorded with the court first. Otherwise, it’ll be a complete waste of time and money, of course. The court will allow you few months to do that and later you will need to submit the papers with the court to prove that you did.

You have to do this I guess since you were found guilty bumping into the car in front of yours.

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 02:01 pm Post Subject: A personal injury liability issue

A year and a half ago, 11/3/2012, an incident occurred where a woman claimed I hit her while she was crossing a heavily traveled street in Milw. WI The police were called who talked to the parties involved & witnesses nearby and determined the accident occurred because of inattentive driving on my part, but a citation for inattentive driving was never issued. I told the on the scene police officer that my vehicle was barely moving and that I believe the woman walked into my vehicle and fell to the ground, the heavily traveled street, and laid there until police arrived. The woman got to her feet when asked to by police and claimed numerous injuries so was transported by EMT to a nearby emergency facility. The area where the incident occurred is primarily an African American community and the woman, witnesses, and responding police were all African American so I felt a discriminatory presence. In doing a background check of the woman claiming injuries it was found that party has a history of numerous liability claims etc. I reported the issue to my auto insurance company etc. upon arriving back at my residence. I've heard nothing from anyone until yesterday, 12/30/2013 when I received correspondence from my auto insurance company, Allstate, which stated the law firm retained by the woman claiming injuries was demanding settlement. I contacted the drafter of the received correspondence, an employee of Allstate Ins., to find out what had transpired prompting such a letter and demand. That party stated that the supposedly injured woman had been receiving therapy and that because typically pedestrians are favored by juries in this type of situation thay would most likely settle with the representing attorney for the supposedly injured woman. I than asked how my insurance rates will be affected. The woman talked to from Allstate ins. told me I should address such an inquiry to my Allstate agent.
My question to is can I monetarily recover by bringing an action against my auto insurance carrier for increased auto insurance rates because Allstate Ins. failed to properly represent myself on this issue.
Jim Luciana, cla

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 04:06 pm Post Subject:

My question to is can I monetarily recover by bringing an action against my auto insurance carrier for increased auto insurance rates because Allstate Ins. failed to properly represent myself on this issue



No, because the are doing exactly as your contract requires and exactly what the law requires them to do.... provide you a defense. This defense is paying the claim.

Here is the thing... stuff life this happens thousands of times every day. It's the nature of the tort system. The alternative is that Allstate does not pay the claim, you are sued and the plaintiff obtains an excess verdict.judgment. This means a verdict in excess of your policy limits. _You_ would then need to pay the difference. This could be $10,000 or it could be $50,000. Would you think think Allstate did their job in defending you? Answer... nope. You'd then sue Allstate for not settling the claim. Sounds fair, huh. Allstate is blamed when they settle and blamed when they don't.

In this case it can be proven that you hit the plaintiff. Like it or not, this can be proven in court. So Allstate is 100% correct in paying the claim to get it settled. They are doing the right thing and you want to so after then for this. Your _real_ complaint for increased rates are against the plaintiff and witnesses who are lying.

Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 10:05 pm Post Subject: Life Insurance

I have had Sentury life Insurance since I was married back in the 90's and got Multiple Sclerosis during late 90's, whom is Matt Quinn? and he also has MS so why did he take me off the policy? I need answers fast, please

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 03:45 pm Post Subject: Division of Insurance MIssouri

Can you still sue your insurance company if you register a complaint with the Missouri Division of Insurance?

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 04:21 pm Post Subject:

Can you still sue your insurance company if you register a complaint with the Missouri Division of Insurance?



Yes.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 05:40 pm Post Subject: Annuity insurance

My husband has an annuity insurance for over 30 plus years; now that he is getting up their in age it increases monthly...the insurance co. put the policy in lapse often and payment goes up every time that happens...And we pay! and pay! the last letter received stated we had until April 2014 to pay up...A week ago we decided to pay on line we were unable to pay; He called only to hear we are terminated and would need to reapply. Can you give me some directions please?

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 05:46 pm Post Subject: Medicare insurance rep advice was a lie

I gave a complete list of my meds to my Medicare insurance rep. He "researched" them and advised they were all covered and would run me about $150/mo. I've been on Humira for the past four years, and it was included in the list. I left my husband's insurance and went with Blue Shield. I found out two months-without any RA medication-that my new copay for the Humira went from $5/mo to over $800. Obviously, his "research" was very flawed. I applied for assistance but was told I make "too much money" and it's too late to rejoin my husband's insurance. I'm in daily pain as my doctor put me back on my old med and it's just not as good as Humira. With Humira I felt normal. Do I have any rights for actions against this inurance rep as he has totally destroyed my-and my husband's-quality of life?

Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:13 am Post Subject: breach of insurance contract

The roof on our house is damage and we have tried to put in a claim to have it replaced for several years each time we incur new damages. The insurance adjuster claims that the roof is not damaged so we just need to patch it. Over the past 9 years we have filled 3 claims on the roof and they will not help. We have full replacement value on our roof and our insurance company will not replace it. We have T-locks on the west side of the house and 3 tab on the east side of the house and with all the wind damage we have lost more than enough shingles over the years to have it fully replaced, but we only had it patched as the insurance company suggested. We would like to know what we can do to fix this problem.

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