Breaking Down Bad Faith: Insurers’ Good Faith Duties and Defending Bad Faith Claims
JONES DAY PRESENTS®: Insurance Implications of the California Consumer Privacy Act
With increasing frequency, insurers are challenging the sufficiency and clarity of settlement demands they failed to previously accept. The insurer’s challenges can take many forms but most focus on a demand not being written...more
Insurers are frequently asked to satisfy their duty of good faith and fair dealing by entertaining reasonable settlement offers within the combined limits of the policies. However, primary and excess insurers do not always...more
What happens between a primary and excess liability insurer when their mutual insured is hit with a verdict $2.15 million over the primary limit and the excess insurer was not put on notice until after the verdict? This was...more
Parties to a lawsuit may have vastly different perspectives on the validity and value of a claim, but as a matter of course, the issue of settlement will arise. Trial is an exceedingly expensive endeavor with an uncertain...more
The vast majority of extra-contractual/bad faith cases involve a carrier’s failure to secure a release of an insured by accepting a reasonable settlement opportunity within the policy limits. The absence of a reasonable...more
Insurers attempting to accept a time-limited demand (often called a “Holt” demand in Georgia) must adhere to every term and condition of performance therein, even those that appear immaterial; otherwise, a court may find that...more
To combat a perceived litigation tactic by plaintiffs counsel of using settlement demands within policy limits to set up insurers for bad faith, insurance company associations lobbied for statutory clarification to avoid...more
A little more than one year after Progressive scored a bad faith win in Eres v. Progressive American Ins. Co., 998 F.3d 1273 (11th Cir. 2021), Progressive came away with another victory in Deary v. Progressive American Ins....more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently addressed the issue of whether tendering a policy limits check on a liability policy with an overbroad release could constitute bad faith. In Pelaez v....more
A primary insurer has a duty of good faith to an excess insurer to attempt to negotiate a settlement with a third-party claimant within the primary insurer’s limits. However, determining whether that duty of good faith was...more
As the Fifth Circuit reminded us in a December 21 decision, primary insurers can find themselves in excess insurers’ shoes if they reject settlement demands within their policy limits. In American Guaranty & Liability...more
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently released two opinions involving multiple liability claims against an insured with insufficient policy limits. Both cases involved appeals from summary judgment orders in bad...more
The Georgia Court of Appeals recently made waves in Hughes v. First Acceptance Insurance Company of Georgia, Inc., 343 Ga. App. 693 (2017). First, it aggrandized the role of a jury in determining the existence of an offer to...more
Welcome to our second Roundup of 2017, where we feature the cases litigated and settlements finalized during the second calendar quarter of the year. It was a very active quarter in almost all of the categories we monitor,...more
In a recent decision, the Fifth Circuit held that a primary policy was not exhausted, after the primary insurer made settlement payments that did not exceed the primary policy limits, even though the insured contributed...more
Purscell v. Tico Ins. Co., No. 13-2362, 2015 WL 3855253 (8th Cir. June 22, 2015). Court holds it was not bad faith for insurer to pursue investigation into underlying lawsuit before considering settlement demand. ...more
Recently, a Texas Court of Appeals handed down a pro-policyholder opinion in the case of Plantation Pipe Line Co. v. Highlands Insurance Co., in Receivership, Case No. 11-12-00029-CV (Tex. App. Aug. 29, 2014). The issue...more
The decision in Quellos Group LLC v. Federal Insurance Co., No. 68478-7-1 (Wash. Ct. App. Nov. 12, 2013) is a reminder that vague policy language can be costly. You may not have access to your excess insurance funds. The...more
A good deal has already been written about the recent Reid case in California, but there is more to be said. On Oct. 7, 2013, Division 8 of the Second District Court of Appeals held in Reid v. Mercury Insurance Company, No....more
On November 12, 2013, in Quellos Group LLC v. Federal Insurance Company, the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of two excess professional liability insurers because the excess policies “require[d]...more
On October 7, 2013, the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District held in Reid v. Mercury Insurance Company that an insurer that acknowledged its insured’s liability for a third party’s injuries and...more
In This Issue: - Wisconsin Court of Appeals: Insurer Does Not Commit Bad Faith by Refusing to Pay the Undisputed Portion of an Insured’s Claim Where the Policy Does Not Require Payment - Southern District of...more
Getting Over the Bar: Second Circuit Requires Actual Payment of Underlying Limits In Order to Trigger Excess D&O Policies - In June, the Second Circuit held that two Federal Insurance Company ("FIC") excess D&O...more