LawCall: Bad Faith Lawsuits

Attorney Tommy Siniard discusses bad faith lawsuits against insurance companies

Us also tonight.

You know what, i forgot to let you talk about legitimate claims. if your claim gets denied and the insurance company has denied a legitimate claim, that's a whole other ball game >> tommy siniard: it can be.

It's called bad faith.

In alabama it's sort of a stricter standard than some of the things we'll list up here in other states, but it's when an insurance company has no arguable factual or legal basis for the denial.

Or they intentionally failed to properly investigate the claim to see if it's a claim or not.

So if they make no offer in a case where there's injuries and the liabilities are clear, you can sue them for bad faith and that's a claim where a juror can award punitive damages.

>> sharon doviet: what does that get you?

If they did that.

>> tommy siniard: a bad faith claim, where the underlying claim was $22,000 and bad faith was over 300, 310.

>> sharon doviet: wow.

Okay.

>> tommy siniard: it's sort of way of keeping insurance companies in line for just being -- and i'll say this.

It's not all insurance companies, and i won't call names, but since our jury trials have been suspended really since february or march, they know they don't have to face the music and there's no prejudgment interest.

Let's suppose you were injured two years ago and your trial was going to come up in february.

Well, it didn't.

And it didn't come cup in march or april or may.

They can sit on that money and not offer it until the risk of trial.

And then they usually get right.

And so there are some that are playing in that playground that are to the point that one insurance company is not even calling us back after we meated a demand.

So we're considering bad faith action, and maybe like a class action because it's a pattern in practice among all the hurt people.

>> sharon doviet: wow.

>> tommy siniard: so if you're listening, get off your pole and pay the claim.

You tell everybody you're going to with the cute commercials, but everybody knows that deals with an insurance company, they