Personal Injury Law

Must an Insurance Carrier Engage in ?Good Faith? When Evaluating Your Claim?

By JimReed

At the outset, let me be clear that this is a complicated issue and the answer to the question is NOT an easy “Yes” or “No”.  However, it’s an interesting issue that is important to ALL of us because the legal standards by which our insurance carriers are measured will directly impact the way our insurance companies treat us whenever we are forced to file a claim.

First, a little background about what “good faith”, and more importantly, “bad faith” means.  Generally, our laws require all of us to act in “good faith” whenever we are interacting with other people or organizations.  The idea is that we should all play fairly and by the rules.  When we don’t play fair or violate the rules, that’s acting in “bad faith”.  The purpose of our laws is to prevent people from breaking the rules or punish them when they do. Pretty simple so far, aye? (more…)

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Full post as published by New York Injury Law Blog on March 16, 2008 (boomark / email).