Insurance claims handling
I’ve been reading Jay Feinman’s excellent book, Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. The book deals with the games insurance companies play in...
View ArticleMore on the ERISA “arbitrary and capricious” standard
To many policyholders, ERISA is a government program that simply backfired (sort of like Prohibition). That’s because ERISA considers an insurance company to be a “fiduciary.” Back in 1974, when ERISA...
View ArticleBad Faith and Settlement Negotiations
Here’s an interesting question recently confronted by the Ninth Circuit: Is it bad faith for an insurance company to refuse to initiate settlement discussions in a third-party context when liability...
View ArticleBad Faith Insurance Claims Handling
Here’s a question that perhaps should be posed to a magician: How can an insurance company turn an $85,000 claim (on a policy with a $100,750 applicable limit) into an $850,000 bad faith verdict? If...
View ArticleSuperstorm Sandy and Bad Faith Claims Handling
Representing people who have lost homes and businesses following Sandy has been gut-wrenching. And, I have to say, many of the carriers haven’t made it any easier. I could catalog some of the problems...
View ArticleThe discoverability of insurance company claims files
I once had a coverage case that involved a claim for environmental contamination at a chicken farm. (Yes. A chicken farm. In New Jersey.) When we were able to pry the claim file loose in discovery,...
View ArticleInsurance coverage for water damage
The great American humorist and writer Ambrose Bierce (1842-circa 1914) published a famous work called “The Devil’s Dictionary,” in which he provided astute (if sardonic) definitions of many common...
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