Insurance Bad Faith

Serving West Virginia and Ohio

Coverage & Liability Issues

Insurance coverage refers to the circumstances under which your insurance agrees to pay you in the event of damages to your person and property. Often, insurance policies will explicitly mention when you are covered and when you are not, but there are many ways in which coverage issues can turn into lawsuits.

One area in which insurance companies sometimes practice bad faith is during the sale of the policy. In attempting to sell an insurance policy, an agent for the company may imply that the coverage of the policy is much higher or broader than it actually is. For example, many homeowners who purchased hurricane insurance along the Gulf Coast were led to believe that the policy covered more than just wind damage. Then, following Katrina, when their homes were damaged by wind, rain, and flood, they found that they were only covered for a tiny portion of the damages.

Another area in which insurance companies attempt to avoid payouts on claims is in arguing that damages do not fall under the coverage. Again, following Katrina, claims adjusters inspecting damaged homes attempted to attribute the majority or even all damage to the water damage that was outside the coverage, even in cases where a significant portion of the damage had been done by wind.

Claims adjusters may also conceal coverage during the claims process. One of the most common cases is in relation to umbrella coverage, which policy holders may forget and claimants may not know about, and which can apply to many different forms of accidents. In these cases, the only way to force the insurance company to admit that the coverage exists is to file a lawsuit.

In many cases, the amount of coverage and the applicability of coverage will depend on establishing the liability of the insured party, and/or showing that you are not liable. Consult our page on determining liability to learn some factors that are relevant in different types of personal injury cases.

When it comes to your fight, we believe in what's right, and we won't accept the insurance company's "no" for an answer. We will investigate and press your case until the insurance company admits the full extent of coverage applicable in your case. If you are having difficulty getting an insurance company to admit coverage, please contact Jan Dils & Jim Leach, PLLC today for a free initial insurance bad faith consultation and case evaluation.