Bernard Tully Personal Injury Lawyer. Phone: 412-281-8700
According to Wikipedia, a “bad faith claim insurance refers to an insurer’s attempt to renege on its obligations to its clients, either through its refusal to pay a policyholder’s legitimate claim or investigate and process a policyholder’s claim within a reasonable period.” So how does setting up a bad faith claim in an injury surgery case increase the value of your case?
We recently had a case where we represented a client who was walking in a crosswalk going to church and she got hit by a younger guy. This led her to have surgery, spend about three weeks in the hospital, and go to rehab. We got the policy limits from the wrongdoer, and our client had a policy for underinsurance with her own company. She paid a little bit more, but it greatly helped her in the end. I might add if you make a claim for underinsurance, it doesn’t increase your rates or have any negative effect at all on your case.
What we did was talk to the insurance company stating we’re making an underinsurance claim, and we’ll give you whatever records you want, and we’ll authorize you to do a full evaluation. However, even after everything we gave them, they still didn’t increase the offer. After a while of giving them everything they wanted, we sent a letter to the insurance company informing them we are filing a lawsuit against them for bad faith. They improperly handled this claim and breached their fiduciary duty.
This caused the insurance company to worry and increased their initial offer for underinsurance from $25,000 to $75,000. So, you can see the effect of setting up a bad faith claim in an injury case. It is possible to greatly increase the value of your underinsurance case by properly documenting anything your own insurance company wants to do for a full evaluation.
Our main focus is honesty. We always preach it. We are passionate about trying to help any injured person or family member with their case. Questions about the blog? CALL US!
Bernard Tully Allegheny County Personal Injury and Bad Faith Lawyer. Phone: 412-281-8700 and 1-800-518-0050