What are Grounds for a Bad Faith Lawsuit?

May 10, 2019

bad faith insuranceIn the United States, your rights exist under the law only if you make yourself aware of them and take due diligence to effectuate them. The insurance companies have a golden throne when it comes to settling disputes. They can chalk up a variety of “bad faith” tactics to the nature of their bloated bureaucracy and make up phony excuses when claims are not processed promptly.

Although most insurance companies act in a reputable and policy-driven manner that shows no prejudice to injured victims, if the stakes are high enough and you have not hired a respectable attorney yet, they may try to pull a fast one or give you the run around on money that they know you are owed.

What Are Some Examples of Bad Faith?

An insurance company acts with bad faith when it intentionally tries to mislead you regarding your rights under the policy in a common sense case. They can make up their own personal interpretations of the insurance policy contract terms that lack common sense. They may also force you to struggle with medical bills, unemployment, and ongoing trauma by refusing to settle a case where only juror confusion could possibly avail them of liability. They may even play stupid and pretend that they don’t understand the facts of the claim or omit key indisputable facts to write their own narrative of what occurred.

In any case, they will usually cover their footsteps and try to make every intentional error look like an accident. This is their open-door loophole to abuse policyholders in any manner that they desire. All they need is some other plausible reason, such as a bloated case-load, for the insurance adjusters to act with “bad faith” in handling your claims.

• Delaying approval or denial of claims
• Threatening to undermine arbitration awards with appeals
• Actively misleading the claimant regarding the statute of limitations on claims
• Compelling a claimant to refrain from hiring an attorney for some incentive
• Altering the contract terms without consent
• Attempting to settle at unreasonable rates
• Refusing to settle even the indisputable claims to build leverage on disputable claims
• Misrepresenting policies to hoodwink the claimant

Why Do You Need an Attorney?

When you contact Los Angeles Bad Faith Attorneys at the Winthrop Law Group, Attorney Reid Winthrop will work tirelessly to hold the insurance companies to the letter of their contract and the just execution of equity to you as the policyholder. A policyholder faces enough burdens while the insurance companies continue to reap record annual profits because the laws are set up in their favor.

When they deviate and try to pull the rug out from under their policyholders for trusting them, the victories create an incentive to prey on other policyholders and a new status quo. This is detrimental to our society and takes away the humanitarian communal bond that insurance is supposed to effectuate.

Because it is difficult to study the intricacies of the law, you should contact Los Angeles Bad Faith Attorneys at the Winthrop Law Group. Attorney Reid Winthrop doesn’t just practice the law but also shapes the law in this field whenever he achieves victory in a new factual scenario.