Friday, November 18, 2011

What is Bad Faith When Dealing With Insurance Companies After an Auto Accident?

By David Lawrence, MD


After being in a car accident that was not your fault, you may unfortunately need to deal with the at fault driver's insurance carrier. If you then become upset with the insurance companies you will want to know if there is anything that can be done about it?

The answer is you may have a potential claim against the insurance carrier for bad faith. This is when the insurance carrier treats you outrageously or unreasonably. Besides the money already owed to you by the insurance company, they may need to compensate you for punitive damages as punishment for their behavior.

Insurance carriers tend to fight very hard against it when individuals file bad faith claims. Trying to take care of getting compensated by yourself for a bad faith claim is very difficult without a personal injury attorney. This attorney should let the insurance company know that there is a responsibility to their clients.

The primary reason insurance companies are in business is to make a profit, so they have an conflict of interest when it comes to paying out settlements. The veteran PI lawyer will contact the insurance company to put them on notice of their duty to protect client rights and obey state law.

It's not surprising that insurance carriers will attempt to blame you for the accident if they can figure out a way so they dont have to pay you. An example would be an accident where the other driver turns into you and gets a ticket from the police. Then the insurance company may blame you for half of the responsibility. They may say you failed to maintain a proper lookout. After laughing big time trying to figure out what they meant by proper lookout you may realize they are serious. Arguing with that person would then not get you anywhere.

The issue here is that if the at fault driver's insurance company can get you to admit some fault whether it adds to 25 or 50% they will avoid paying you. What makes it worse is that if any substantial percentage is found, your own carrier may elevate your rates. This is why in this instance a veteran personal injury lawyer can make sure this doesn't happen to you.




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