He who has the gold is in the best position to make the rules. Many insurers live by that motto, and seek to starve claimants into submission by delaying and refusing to negotiate fairly. We turn the table on insurers by aggressively using the unfair insurance practices act, and putting them on the defensive. While we may never get the upper hand, we at least level the playing field. it is our objective either to get insurers to act responsibly up front and if not to pay dearly for that failure on the back end.
Insurers are very touchy about public disclosure of their bad faith settlements, but here are some examples:
* Class Action Confidential Settlement. An insurer was taking settlement monies from tort victims even though they knew the law did not allow subrogation of liability settlements. All the victims were made whole in this settlement of a class action brought by our firm.
*$8m paid by an insurer on a verdict where their policy was 1.2m. Before verdict, they refused to offer their full policy. Trying to save a few hundred thousand, they ended up losing almost $7 million. Jobs were lost by those involved and policies were changed that benefit all of us as a result.
*$3.5m paid by an insurer on a 2m policy-again because they would not offer their full policy.
*$2m An insurer paid this in an arbitration award for their bad faith in failing to make any offer for two years on a fire damage claim.
*$285,000 paid by a liability insurer who had only a $50,000 policy. They paid almost 6 times the policy limits because they failed to negotiate reasonably in the beginning, and we sued them for bad faith.
*$425,000 paid by a major insurer where their policy limit was $100,000. Again they tried to save a few thousand off their policy and their greed cost them.
