Bad Faith

Not every insurance claim results in straightforward payments. Some people have to fight to receive the coverage they paid for and may even need to take legal action. Insurance litigation is sometimes necessary to secure appropriate compensation for covered losses....

In Wenk v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. and HJ Enterprises, Inc., 242 A.3d 309 (2020 Pa. Super. 26), the Court rejected plaintiff’s claim for institutional bad faith under Pennsylvania’s bad faith statute, 42 Pa. C.S. §8731.  Under Pennsylvania’s bad faith statute...

In Pinto v. Farmers Insurance Exchange, 61 Cal. App. 5th 676, 276 Cal. Rptr. 3d 13 (2d Dist. 2021), the California Court of Appeals, Second District, held that the proof required to establish insurer bad faith for failure to settle required the plaintiff to prove both...

Recently, the Kentucky Supreme Court allowed a bad faith lawsuit to proceed forward for alleged delays in resolving a UIM claim, notwithstanding the assertion of mutual mistake regarding the policy. The Kentucky Supreme Court in Nicholas v. Zurich American Insurance...

The recent case of Eres v. Progressive American Insurance Co., 998 F.3d 1273 (11th Cir. 2021) demonstrates the failure of a questionable attempt to set up the insurance company for bad faith. In this case, the insured driver caused a motor vehicle accident which...

In Cedillo v. Farmers Ins. Co., 408 P.3d 886 (Idaho 2017) the insured sued Farmers Insurance for bad faith arising out of the presentation of a UIM claim.  In this case, Farmers did not dispute that its policy provided UIM coverage to the insured.  The dispute between...

In Lock v. American Family Insurance Co., 460 P.3d 683 (Wash. App. Div. 1 2020) the Washington court found defending against the insured’s bad faith lawsuit was not a claim denial, nor was it bad faith. The underlying case involved UIM and PIP claims under American...

Recently the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held, interpreting Illinois law, that to establish a bad faith failure to settle case under Illinois law, the claimant must prove both reasonable probability of liability and reasonable probability of damages in excess of the...

The Colorado Supreme Court in Schultz v. GEICO Casualty Co., 429 P.3d 844 (Colo. 2018) recently held that later-developed evidence was irrelevant to a UIM claim because the denial had taken place prior to the development of that evidence. In this case, the insured,...