Breaking Down Bad Faith: Insurers’ Good Faith Duties and Defending Bad Faith Claims
JONES DAY PRESENTS®: Insurance Implications of the California Consumer Privacy Act
The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Kinsale Insurance Company v. Pride of St. Lucie Lodge 1189, Inc., -- F.4th ----, 2025 WL 1142094 (11th Cir. Apr. 18, 2025), has significant implications for the good faith standard...more
There must be something in the water or the plaintiff’s bar just had a conference where the keynote speaker addressed strategies for putting pressure on insurers by issuing time-limited demands (“TLD”) because we have been...more
In Brodowy v. Progressive Direct Ins. Co., the Ninth Circuit affirms the district court’s granting of Progressive Direct Insurance Company’s (“Progressive”) motion for summary judgment as to claims alleging bad faith and...more
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Finson, Apr. 17, 2024, 2nd DCA - This appeal followed a trial for underinsured motorist (UM) benefits in which the judge entered a final verdict in the amount of...more
Questions arise when an insurer is faced with multiple claimants and insufficient policy limits to settle all claims. Join partners Colleen E. Hayes and Thomas M. Wester for a discussion of the approaches various...more
In an issue of first impression, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Allstate and held that the two-year statute of limitations for bad faith claims arising out of an uninsured/underinsured...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
Insurance companies facing a bad faith claim are at risk for extra contractual damages—additional damages above the existing limits to a policy. In this episode of Legally Qualified, RumbergerKirk insurance coverage attorneys...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
In Florida, an excess judgment is when the judgment in the case exceeds the policy limits. The excess judgment rule requires an injured plaintiff to obtain an excess judgment before prosecuting a bad faith claim against an...more
On February 15, 2022, the United States Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the Southern District of Florida’s summary judgment victory for GEICO, finding that no reasonable jury could conclude that GEICO had...more
Applying Illinois law, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has held that a D&O policy’s professional services and contract exclusions do not bar coverage for lawsuits seeking damages for fees and...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
On March 8, 2021 the California Court of Appeal, reversing a $10 million verdict against Farmers, found that a jury must specifically find unreasonable acts by an insurer to support a “failure to settle” bad faith...more
The California Court of Appeal issued an important decision that may significantly impact how settlement opportunities are evaluated in catastrophic liability claims. In Pinto v. Farmers Ins. Exch., No. B295742, ___ Cal....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
A federal district court has ruled that a third-party administrator’s professional liability policy does not afford coverage for a claim against the TPA arising from an excess judgment against the TPA’s...more
The Minnesota Supreme Court in the matter of Alison Joel Peterson v. Western National Mutual Insurance Company, 946 N.W.2d 903 (Minn. 2020) opined for the first time on the state’s bad faith statute (Minn. Stat. § 604.18) and...more
NEW GUIDANCE FROM THE GEORGIA SUPREME COURT RE: AN INSURER’S DUTY TO SETTLE - The issue of whether an insurer has fulfilled its duty to settle in good faith was recently litigated in Georgia. Under Georgia law “[a]n...more
Every policyholder will likely face a scenario where its primary insurer refuses a settlement offer within limits. The primary insurer is potentially liable for that excess verdict if it acted in bad faith by refusing to...more
An insurer defending a claim against an insured that could exceed policy limits has a good faith obligation to settle the claim if possible. Failure to do so puts a nonsettling insurer at grave risk. An Eleventh Circuit...more
Bryant v. GeoVera Specialty Insurance Company, No. 4D18-189 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. May 8, 2019) - Hershel and Betty Bryant’s residence sustained damage caused by a pipe leak. The Bryants subsequently reported the loss to...more
In Kemper v. Equity Insurance (No .1:15-cv-02961-MLB, N.D.Ga. July 8, 2019), recently appointed federal judge Michael Brown rejected plaintiff Amy Kemper's attempt to assert a bad faith claim against Equity Insurance Company....more
Since 2008, Minnesota has had a bad-faith statute that penalizes an insurance company for its unreasonable denial of a first-party insurance claim. But it was only earlier this month that a Minnesota appellate court...more
Last week, the Georgia Supreme Court confirmed that an insurance carrier’s duty to settle a claim against its policyholder arises only after an injured claimant presents a “valid offer” to settle within policy limits. In...more