Would I have a successful bad faith insurance lawsuit?

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Would I have a successful bad faith insurance lawsuit?

On February 5, 2016 I got into a wreck which I was deemed not at fault. The night of the accident I went to the hospital and had treatments for a shattered nose, cracked eye socket, cracked cheek bone and 2 buldging vertebrae in my lower back. The next day I contacted my health insurance company and explained to them what happened and they agreed to cover all claims according to injuries from wreck. Well they covered everything except the ER visit which totaled approximately $18,000 with no insurance coverage. After calling my insurance company multiple times and explaining that the at- fault driver had low policy limits they requested a declaration sheet of both me and the at-fault driver. The at-fault driver had policy limits of only $15,000 and we aggreed upon a settlement offer to pay subrogation in an amount close to $7,500. The insurance lady stated that once they get payment that it would settle everything. Well now I found out that not only did my insurance never pay the ER claim, now it’s in collections and on my credit report and all.

Asked on July 18, 2017 under Insurance Law, Louisiana

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 6 years ago | Contributor

Since your complaint is based partially on them violating an agreement to accept $7.500 as payment in full of the claim or costs, you need some written documentation or proof of that agreement (even if only in the form of an email) to establish it; you would also need evidence they received the $7,500. To the extent your claim instead or in addition is based on an allegation that they generally did not pay what they should have under the policy, you should have the policy itself and all correspondence with them about it, as well as evidence relating to the injuries you suffered and how, to show they were covered under the policy.


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