Bad Faith Insurance Lawyer

You pay your insurance premiums because you want the benefit of knowing that when something goes wrong, your insurance company has you covered. But what happens when they do not pay a claim that you know should be covered? Or what happens when your insurance company decides to ignore your claim or they put you off every time you call promising to call you back? Our Kent insurance bad faith attorneys are all too familiar with these situations and other cases of insurance companies acting against their policyholders instead of acting for them.

Insurance companies have a duty of care to their policyholders and when they wrongfully deny your claim, fail to act on your claim, or otherwise fail to provide you the coverage that you are entitled to, you may have an insurance bad faith claim. Fortunately for people who live in Kent and everywhere else in Washington, when insurance companies act in bad faith, our state laws are favorable to the insured.

Common bad faith insurance claim scenarios

There are several ways that insurance companies acting in bad faith tend to respond (or fail to respond) to claims made by their policyholders.

• Delays – An insurance company unreasonably delays payment for a claim or unreasonably delays an investigation into a claim.
• Denial – An insurance company denies a valid claim for which a claimant is entitled to be paid.
• Inadequate payment – An insurance company wrongly pays less than a claim’s real value.
• Inadequate investigation – An insurance company performs a poor investigation or no investigation at all and as a result, fails to pay the claimant the amount that should be paid.
• Misrepresentation – An insurance company misrepresents the actual policy coverage to a policyholder.

Insurance bad faith examples

See below for some examples of bad faith insurance conduct that our clients have experienced.

• Work comp claim denial – A person suffers a debilitating work injury and his or her workers’ compensation claim is denied because the insurance company, with no reasonable basis, believes the employee was not injured to the extent claimed.
• Homeowners insurance denial – An insured makes a claim for water in his or her basement and insurance denies the claim because the home owner does not have flood insurance. The water, however, is due to a pipe burst that is covered under the policy.
• Car accident denial – An insured was in a car accident with an uninsured motorist. The insured suffers $10,000 in injuries and damages and his or her insurance company only pays out $7,000 when the insured is entitled to $10,000.

Recovery

Every case is different which means that every recovery is different. A knowledgeable bad faith insurance attorney will help you maximize your recovery under applicable Washington insurance and consumer protection laws. Depending on the facts of your case, your recovery may include the amount you were actually entitled to under your insurance claim, attorney fees, litigation costs, and an award of up to three times your actual damages. If you believe that you may be a victim of your insurance company’s bad faith, contact a Kent insurance bad faith attorney at Russell & Hill – Injury & Accident Attorneys to schedule a consultation. If your insurance company denied your valid claim or otherwise harmed you in bad faith, they deserve to be held accountable and you deserve to be compensated.