A group of owners of hurricane-damaged homes have brought a putative class action in federal court in Newark, arguing that their flood insurance carriers are short-changing them by calling their first floors “basements”. The case is Donnelly v. New Jersey Re-Insurance Co., Docket No. 12-cv-7629, and was filed by Union City solo Jeffrey Bronster.
Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act
Bad Faith and Settlement Negotiations
By Gene Killian on
Here’s an interesting question recently confronted by the Ninth Circuit: Is it bad faith for an insurance company to refuse to initiate settlement discussions in a third-party context when liability has become reasonably clear? The carrier (Deerbrook, an Allstate company) took the position that bad faith could not exist unless the carrier failed to…
Insurance claims handling
By Gene Killian on
Posted in Claims Investigation
I’ve been reading Jay Feinman’s excellent book, Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. The book deals with the games insurance companies play in claims handling, especially in the personal lines arena. At one point, Feinman quotes from a great movie I haven’t seen in…
The Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act
By Gene Killian on
Posted in Bad Faith
Right now, I’m preparing for a coverage trial involving aspects of both New Jersey and Massachusetts law. I was reviewing the Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Acts (“UCSPA”) adopted in both states, and I noticed the following.
The New Jersey version of UCSPA prohibits certain bad behavior if committed “with such frequency as to indicate…