When you purchase Homeowners Insurance (or Renter’s Insurance), you are purchasing two types of protection: Property insurance, to protect you against certain damage to your home and the contents of your home; and, Liability Insurance, to defend and indemnify you against claims brought by third parties, i.e., if someone gets hurt on your property, or if you injure someone in an incident not involving an automobile.
Your property insurance is called “all-risk” insurance, covering all risks of damage except that which is specifically excluded (and there are many exclusions in the policy.) Often times there is more than one cause to a loss, for example, a broken water pipe (covered) and water damage (excluded). Insurance companies are often quick to look for an exclusion in which to deny a claim, when a proper analysis will determine that the main cause of the loss is not excluded.
If you have been denied a property damage claim by State Farm, Farmers, Allstate, USAA, Travelers, Geico, or any other insurance company, please contact us immediately. In these types of claims, the time in which a lawsuit must be filed (i.e., the statute of limitations) is greatly reduced because of a provision in all California homeowners policies that require suits to be filed within one year of the loss.
Wrongful denial of a valid property damage claim is bad faith.
We have successfully recovered for our clients payment for improperly denied claims for losses due to such things as fire, mold, water, theft, and, foundation damages.
Similarly, if you are sued and your insurance company refuses to defend you on a suit brought by the injured party, or informs you that it will not pay for any judgment rendered against you, you may have a valid basis for challenging the denial, and the insurance company’s bad faith conduct.
We don’t let insurance companies take advantage of you!