These days everybody relies on insurance, either health care insurance, car insurance, life insurance or otherwise, to be there when they have had a catastrophe in their family. Whether it is car insurance after an accident or medical insurance if you find out you or a loved one has a severe illness or injury, you want to be sure that your insurance is going to be there for you. You shouldn’t have to pay your premiums every month without getting the service you need when you need it. People know there is a chance they will have no one else to look to besides their insurance company when bad things occur. And if there is one constant in life it is the unexpected happening no matter what we do to prevent it.
Unfortunately, for many people when bad things do happen, their insurance company finds any excuse they can come up with to keep from servicing their paying customers who expect the sense of protection their insurance policy is supposed to afford. When an insurance company tries to wriggle out of taking care of what they have offered to pay based on their contract with the client, they are engaging in what is known as insurance bad faith.
Insurance bad faith is a legal term that allows for clients of an insurance company to sue for its bad acts. Throughout the United States, insurance companies owe a legal duty of good faith and fair dealing to their clients, when they break this contract this is insurance bad faith. This duty is implied every time an individual enters into an insurance contract. When an insurance company breaks their contract with their client, the client can sue them with a tort claim as well as for a breach of contract claim. Specifically, insurance companies can be held liable for civil penalties as well as for the fact that they did not uphold their end of the bargain. Trial attorneys are available to help fight for the rights of insured clients.
In this circumstance an insurance company can be made to pay as much as triple damages because of their bad faith when compared with the original face value of the client’s policy.
All insurances carriers have a duty to their policy holders to keep their agreements with their customers and act in good faith. By trying to find small loopholes in customer’s contracts in order to avoid upholding their duties is considered acting in bad faith and can lead to a lawsuit. The types of insurance companies that are often sued for bad faith include:
