Were you recently involved in an accident and had your insurance claim denied in bad faith? Contact the Los Angeles bad faith insurance lawyers at M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers. We can help you fight back, level the playing field, and force an agreement that actually reflects the compensation you’re owed.
And, we’ll fight to make the insurance company pay for any additionals costs, expenses, or pain and suffering you’ve been forced to deal with because of their bad faith actions.
Contact our law office in Los Angeles, CA, or give us a call at (877) 300-4535 to learn more about how we can help. We offer a free consultation and are available around the clock to take your call.
Why You Should Call M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers to Help You Fight Bad Faith Insurance Practices
When you submit a legitimate claim to an insurance company, you expect that they’ll give it the time and attention it deserves. You expect they’ll do the right thing and pay you the benefits you rightfully deserve. After all, it’s part of the contract. You (or the policyholder) pay a premium in exchange for benefits if you (or someone else) get hurt.
Sometimes insurance companies try to cut corners or engage in conduct that’s not in good faith. In truth, they’re just hoping you won’t notice or that you won’t have the time or resources to fight back.
That’s where M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers can help if you’ve been the victim of bad faith.
- Our Los Angeles personal injury lawyers have more than a century of experience.
- We stand up to the toughest insurance companies every day and win big for our clients.
- We’ve already won more than $400 Million in damages for accident victims just like you.
Let our Los Angeles, California, law firm fight to hold the insurance company accountable for its bad faith practices. We won’t just work hard to recover the benefits you were originally trying to get. Our Los Angeles bad faith insurance attorneys will go further and seek additional compensation for the time and money you’ve lost due to their illegal practices.
Give our award-winning Los Angeles personal injury lawyers a call to learn more. We offer a free consultation and work on a contingency fee basis. There’s no cost to hire us unless we win your case.
What is Bad Faith Insurance?
Insurance companies already have an advantage when it comes to the claims process. They deal with claims every single day, so they know how the process can be manipulated or abused. Most injury victims don’t have that kind of insight or knowledge. So, to ensure that victims aren’t taken advantage of, insurers have a legal obligation to act in good faith when dealing with claims.
As long as a claim is legitimate and there’s a valid insurance policy, the provider must consider the claim in a timely manner and pay benefits if they’re warranted.
Bad faith involves conduct that is intentionally dishonest, misleading, or fraudulent.
What Are Some Examples of Bad Faith Insurance Practices?
So what do bad faith insurance practices look like?
Here are a few common examples:
- Delaying a review, investigation, or consideration of a claim without justification
- Denying a claim without a good reason
- Failure to investigate a claim
- Intentionally undervaluing a claim without justification
- Offering less money than a claim is worth
- Failure to communicate with claimants and other parties
- Making threatening statements
- Refusing requests for documents or information
- Changing the terms of a policy after a claim is submitted
- Misrepresenting policy language or terms
- Delaying the payment of a valid claim
- Refusing to make a good faith effort to settle a claim
- Telling a claimant to not hire an attorney
- Offering misleading information about the policy
If you suspect that the insurance company isn’t acting in good faith, don’t hesitate to call M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers for help. Our Los Angeles bad faith insurance attorneys have decades of experience dealing with manipulative insurance providers. We know these strategies all too well and can help you set things straight and fight for the benefits and damages you deserve.
When Can an Insurance Company Deny a Claim For Benefits?
While insurance companies have a duty to act in good faith, it doesn’t mean that they have to pay out every claim that’s submitted. There are times when an insurance company will be fully justified in denying a claim or engaging in other actions that, without justification, could be considered to be bad faith practices.
Here are some examples of when an insurance company can deny a claim or delay the claims process:
- The policy has lapsed because the premiums weren’t paid
- The type of injury/incident is excluded from policy coverage
- The policy doesn’t apply under the particular circumstances
- Evidence of liability is unclear or disputed
- The insurance company needs additional time to investigate a claim or obtain documentation
- The cause of the injury is unclear or in dispute
So how can you know if an insurance company denies a claim lawfully or if their actions are in bad faith? That’s where it helps to have an experienced bad faith insurance attorney in Los Angeles involved from the start of your claim.
Our lawyers know what bad faith practices look like. We know when denials or delays are made without cause. Even when a slight delay may be justified, we stay on top of adjusters to get things done promptly and without unnecessary or harmful setbacks.
What Happens If I’ve Been the Victim of Bad Faith Insurance?
You have a few options.
Hire a Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer
First, it’s important to get an experienced attorney involved if you haven’t already. Hiring an experienced attorney will significantly reduce the likelihood that an insurance carrier will act in bad faith.
Choose a lawyer with a good reputation who has extensive experience dealing with insurance claims and insurance adjusters in Los Angeles. An attorney with a reputation for having zero patience for anything less than transparent consideration of claims can be a huge asset.
Insurance providers don’t want to see law firms like M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers on the other side of the negotiating table. Seeing us can motivate them to do what’s required by law and contract, which can mean a quick and meaningful settlement for you.
Sue For Breach of Contract
Whether you’re filing a claim with your own insurance provider (first-party claim) or someone else’s (third-party claim), there’s a contract involved.
Someone pays a premium for insurance benefits. The insurance company collects that money and, in exchange, agrees to pay if an accident or injury is covered by the terms of the policy.
When an insurance company acts in bad faith, then it’s considered a breach of contract. In California, you can sue the insurance company for breach of contract.
In these lawsuits, you can demand the benefits that were wrongfully denied or withheld – plus interest.
Sue For Bad Faith Damages
You can also sue an insurance company for bad faith damages in California.
So, in addition to recovering the benefits you sought in your original claim, you can request compensation for:
- Mental suffering
- Anxiety
- Humiliation
- Emotional Distress
- Attorney fees
Compensation for things like pain and suffering doesn’t have a set financial value. Juries have the discretion to award an amount that they feel is reasonable and fair, based on the evidence and their common sense.
Attorney fees do have a set financial cost. However, in order to recover damages for attorney fees, you’ll have to prove that it was “reasonably necessary…to hire an attorney to recover the policy benefits” because the insurance company breached its “obligation of good faith and fair dealing.”
In other words, you have to prove that you wouldn’t have had to hire a lawyer to compel a settlement if the insurance company had simply acted in good faith.
In limited instances, punitive damages might also be available.
We Can Help With All Bad Faith Insurance Practices in Southern California
If you were hurt in an accident and have had a problem getting an insurance company to pay the benefits you deserve, M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers in Los Angeles can help.
Call our attorneys for help dealing with all types of insurance providers:
- Car insurance companies
- Homeowner insurance companies
- Health insurance companies
- Property insurance companies
- Life insurance companies
- Workers’ compensation insurance companies
- Medical malpractice insurance companies, and more.
Get in touch with our law firm as soon as you discover that you’ve been the victim of bad faith practices. We can start working on your bad faith claim right away.
Schedule a Free Consultation With a Los Angeles Bad Faith Insurance Lawyer
Was your claim for benefits denied after a car accident in Los Angeles, CA? Did you slip and fall on someone else’s property and can’t get the property owner’s liability insurance company to call you back? Call M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers. You may have been the victim of bad faith insurance practices, and our law firm can help you fight to make things right.
Our Los Angeles bad faith insurance lawyers will pursue the original benefits you needed and can also fight to recover additional damages on your behalf.
We have more than a century of experience dealing with tough cases like yours. Our firm has won hundreds of millions of dollars for injury victims and families in Southern California. Let us help you fight to get the money you deserve, too.
We offer a free consultation, so don’t hesitate to contact our law office in Los Angeles, California, to get started today.
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