After any catastrophe you endure, you and your family will want their normal life back as quickly as possible, especially when your home is involved. Regardless of the nature of the disaster, be it a fire, a break-in, or severe weather, a homeowner counts on their insurance policy to help them rebuild. Why else would you pay for insurance? So, when you find you are not being treated fairly, it can be hugely upsetting.
When insurance companies act in bad faith, you may not know what recourse you have. Generally, an insurance policy adjuster will examine the damage to your home and propose a settlement based on the conditions set by your homeowner’s policy. The claims adjuster ought to be working for you, enabling you to receive the funds owing to you from your policy quickly.
Chances are you will not only be dealing with property damage but personal injuries as well. For this reason, it is essential that your property policy claim is quickly and fairly honored, without incident.
An insurance provider must act in good faith. Your homeowner’s insurance policy is a mutual arrangement between both you and the provider. In the event that a carrier does not respond appropriately, legal action is warranted, often costing more than directly paying your claim. So how do you know if your insurance provider is acting in bad faith? Likely you will experience one of these scenarios.
Refusal to Properly Investigate or Slow to Act
If you find yourself up against roadblock after roadblock, you might be in trouble. Delays in the investigation will delay payments you need to rebuild.
Refusal of Your Claim for No Reason
This is usually the most common type of bad faith situation most homeowners face. Often insurers will use difficult to understand or confusing sections of your policy to refuse your claim.
Demanding an Absurd Amount of Evidence
Insurances companies will often push homeowners to provide document after document to justify the claim they are submitting. Not only does this make the process longer than it need be, but it is also an attempt to discredit the homeowner. Either of these reasons makes it more likely that a claim can be denied, saving the insurer money.
Attempts to Settle for A Much Smaller Amount
This is another common issue for homeowners. Insurance companies are a business and profit from fewer claims being paid to their customers. Paying you a lesser amount is one way to accomplish this.
If you find yourself in one of these situations, all is not lost! There are steps you can take. You can make a bad faith claim, regardless of what state in which you live. Generally, you must show your application is denied without proper cause. If you worry that your policy is too confusing, individual states such as Texas have established legal clauses preventing insurance jargon from overwhelming you. Your plan must be understandable to you and any other any person of reasonable intellect.
Never forget that you are paying into your insurance plan. As soon as you have reason to believe you are being cheated by a bad faith claim, arrange a free appointment with a public adjuster.
This article is from Jenna Brown. Jenna is a freelance blogger who is mainly focused on business innovation and breaking stories in business. Jenna has been blogging since college where she studied marketing and has merged her love of keying stories into copywriting work as well as plenty of reading and writing for fun! Find and follow on her new Twitter here! Also seen here.
