What’s the “Bad” in Bad Faith Insurance?
September 7th, 2010. By Kristine B
You’ve probably seen the commercials on tv: an actor—say Dennis Haysbert—walks around talking about how “his” insurance company (that would be Allstate) is his best friend…how it has his back in a bad situation…how it has bent over backwards to help him in his time of need…and, damn if he doesn’t sound so sincere! Or you’ve seen Flo–the Progressive Insurance girl–making it sound like no way no how would Progressive ever—EVER!—give you a lousy rate. No siree—Flo ensures us that buying insurance is as easy as ordering a Whopper with cheese, hold the pickles—thanks.
But, when it comes time to file an actual claim—when a real person needs real help from a real insurance company, all of a sudden it seems like there are a million reasons why the company won’t pay out a claim. Sometimes, that leads to claims of bad faith insurance—today’s Pleading Ignorance topic.
Before we get to that, though, the obligatory “not every denied claim is a legitimate claim” spiel. It’s true that insurance companies have to protect themselves from fraudsters and people out to make a quick buck off an accident. There are people who see an accident—real or faked—as a way to make easy money. This, of course, puts the honest people at a disadvantage. Why? Because they’re dealing with insurance companies that a) want to make as much profit as possible and b) have to unfortunately protect themselves from fraudsters who see the insurance companies as personal ATM’s.
The mix of profitability and self-protection can lead to claims of bad faith insurance.
So, what is bad faith insurance? You’ve probably heard of it before, because the companies that are accused of practicing it are often large insurance corporations—so it gets airtime in the news. Bad faith insurance occurs when an insurance company denies legitimate claims for illegitimate reasons.
Here’s the thing: When you buy an insurance policy to protect yourself or your family and you pay into it faithfully, with the full expectation that if you should ever need it, the policy will cover you, the insurance companies are required, by law, to pay out your legitimate claims.
Of course, it all looks good on paper—just like that insurance policy!—but when it comes down to it, some insurance companies use all sorts of tactics to avoid paying claims.
They might stall on the claim by forcing you to send in excessive amounts of paperwork—or they may claim to have found “mistakes” in the paperwork you’ve sent in. By stalling, they may push back the time your claim is received so that your claim is no longer valid. They might retroactively cancel your insurance policy—in effect waiting until you make a claim then deciding you shouldn’t have had the policy to begin with. They might find their own medical examiners who overrule your own doctor’s diagnosis. They might reclassify your illness or your claim and state that you should be able to work when you really cannot. Or they may classify a seemingly standard lab test as outpatient surgery requiring precertification that, of course, you did not get. The list of possibilities is endless.
Some insurance companies might target specific claims for denial; these claims might include anyone who claims Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. People making those claims might automatically have their claims denied or may be required to send in additional paperwork to support their claim.
The bottom line is that “bad faith insurance” occurs any time that a legitmate claim that you’ve paid insurance premiums to be covered for is denied or delayed without sound reason. And, if you’ve found yourself in that position and have gone through the proper channels of contacting the insurance company and requesting that your claim be reprocessed or you’ve filed an appeal with the insurer to no avail, you may want to get some legal help.
Find us on
Archive by Category
- Accidents (24)
- Airlines (9)
- Asbestos Mesothelioma (262)
- Automotive (25)
- Celebrity (14)
- Class Action (84)
- Complaints/Comments (15)
- Consumer Fraud (84)
- Contest (2)
- Court of Public Opinion (5)
- Crazy Sh*t Lawyers See (61)
- Criminal Law (4)
- Defective Products (111)
- DePuy ASR Hip Recall (2)
- Discrimination (22)
- Drugs/Medical (248)
- Elder Care Abuse (4)
- Emerging Issues (462)
- Employment (54)
- Environment (52)
- Financial (28)
- Food Illness (15)
- Human/Civil Rights (4)
- Insecurities (5)
- Insurance (16)
- Intellectual Property (16)
- Internet/E-commerce (19)
- lawsuits (161)
- Lawyers (20)
- Lawyers Giving Back (43)
- Lex Levity (10)
- Personal Injury (106)
- Pleading Ignorance (53)
- Real Estate (2)
- Recall (6)
- Scam (3)
- Securities (13)
- Settlement (81)
- Tort Reform (2)
- Totally Tortelicious (81)
- Veterans (11)
- Whistleblower (9)
This story is true this is an amazing story about the # 2 bad faith insurance company on the planet Allstate!,This is a story about what they have done to us and countless others, if theres 10 claims and they pay 2, hold out for the rest they make money. We where denied 2010 for house fire 2009 went through there depositions and all there hoops financial records, medical, worst than getting US citizenship I believe. They removed all are burin't household goods and put them in a warehouse paid the company hallers cleaners of evansville in Who owns the company $13,000 to store our goods, they threw away alot of our content ( or could have been put in various homes) we will never know!,Adjusters call on desposing of content, she was unprofessional to say the least her name is [name withheld] she and hallers cleaners grouped alot of our content together (she said thats how they do it?) all my sons books together on there claim form to save money. Then there was [name withheld] investigator for allstate! We kept asking him many questions with alot of them unanswered ( He always had to consult with their lawyer they hired he will get back to us) we had felling about the out come so we kept asking are you going to denie our claim he responded no we are not, we have all emails recorded phone calls 8 months into investigation we hired public adjuster 24 hours later we recieved letter of denial, but there allstate website still has are claim opened called our local agent he said we are claim free his name is [name withheld] he has two locations not doing to bad I'd say. We asked him why our premium went up he said because all this area went up that strikes me kind of funny!!!. they are still taking premiums they are snakes We want to make everyone aware of theses snakes. If you have allstate get with see your agent ask him if something happens let him explain the process or better yet take your policy to an attorney. They will run your loss of use out and leave you hanging to defend yourself. If something bad happens make sure you have yourself a recording device! document everything! I mean everything!! Do not belieive a word.. because you will have a fight on your hands,I mean along one! we can honestly write theses things because it has and still is happening, we are going to post our story in video. we are still paying mortgage for house that is unliveable. allstate had contractor servpro of evansville start demo then when all fire evidence was gone they told them, We did not authorize, You to demo! Allstate did not pay them so now we have a mechanic lein on our home for $9.000 dollars,it just gets better and better, Our home is over 3500 square ft we owe $165,700
damages estimate $260,000 so we figure they're holding out .. we are renting a 1 bedroom 550 sq ft it's hard paying the rent and mortgage. But we love our home we want allstate to rebuild it! Now and approve our claim. we have full replacement.
Go to allstate sucks.com or badfaithinsurance.com for other stories. Here is our facebook of our inside of our home what they left of it. type in sakura jade esposito on facebook, and see for yourself. The SJE is in cap's. I am in process of painting sign to place in front of our home allstate sucks shame shame allstate.. I am a us navy veteran my wife is disabled we had her mom and dad living with us they are up there in years her dad has parkinsons and alot more to many to list his problems are well documented. Now we had to seperate they are 500 miles living with my wifes brother. Allstate does not care people they really don't. We where remodeling our home, we where going to adopt a sibling group we where so happy that we where moving forward with our siblings. We complyed with allstates process and look what it got us , we had to or we weren't in compliance they kept saying. And now we are being put into the ringer living in limbo, more stressful than ever. If you have time maybe you could call [name withheld] because she has never ever returned our calls we asked her for small advance to replace the christmas stuff they threw away so we could give our son a some what good christmas. she never retured our calls. We did what we could with a little tree on table my son put his puppet on top for tree topper. Call her !ask her where our desposed content is? And why she has no remorse or human care . Also ask her if allstate gave her a wonderful christmas for helping denie us. Also ask her what happened to the contents they threw away the espositos want our stuff back. We want our house rebuilt! Also while you got them on the phone ( he is hard to get) ask if allstate gave him a wonderful christmas for also denying claim?. We will use the internet to fight our battle, put on our gloves, and fight to the finish (allstate)!.we are good citizens we pay our bills served my country honorable, work hard, don't ask for any walfare our home was our investment our place to entertain family and freinds. I can't believe such a company that can just deny at the blink of an eye? We had to find the money to remove our content from the hallers warehouse. Allstate, they just said not our problem! We had to rent a u haul before they sold our burnt content at auction, now its in our burn't house again. I just don't understand how they will waste money taking our stuff to storage I asked them why didn't you just leave it in our home while investigation was going on burkhardt ? He said thats how we do it. So if you have questions you can email us at Please ask honest questions please we have no time for nonsense .Again thank you for letting us tell our story ,Please share ours! we want it to go viro around the world. We will keep fighting.s
It is all part of their deny, delay and defend strategy, they promise all to get your money and when you need compensation they don't deliver.