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Additional Posts in Litigation & Arbitration
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You demand an amount over the policy limits, but say you’ll take policy limits if tendered within a certain amount of time. If they don’t tender, then you’ll withdraw the offer, proceed to trial, and collect any excess from their insured. Insurance company sends a letter to the insured saying they could be held liable for anything over their limits. Their insured freaks out and is calling the adjuster daily to settle the claim.
Send pre suit policy limit bad faith set up, they will deny, send hammer letter freak out insured who will annoy State Farm once you file suit
Might be a dumb question but what’s a hammer letter?
There's a defense firm in my state that handles a lot of State Farm's cases that basically forces everything to trial, no matter how clear cut. They won't mediate, they won't negotiate informally, nothing. My approach with any case with any insurance company is that I'll always start by trying to negotiate, sure, and I'll mediate if the insurance company requests it, but if they don't want to be reasonable, my default is that I pursue every case under the assumption that we're going to trial. And I do in fact try the cases if the insurance never wants to negotiate something reasonable. I think that's the only good way to do it.
We have a LOT of adjusters that do this (Colorado) too.
I did a brief stint as outside counsel for State Farm. In my experience, unless it’s a clear policy limits case or very low damages, it’s difficult to get reasonable authority before mediation. So, throw together some simple discovery, maybe offer up your client’s deposition, and you should get somewhere at mediation. Also, be on the lookout for if the case gets picked up by State Farm in-house. They’ll usually try and do as much as possible to rack up expenses on your end before mediation.
No, you can't get summary judgment, at least not on damages. You might be able to get partial summary judgment on liability, but the judges in my state are even hesitant to do that, even when I think liability is clear. But in a case like the one you described State Farm probably won't contest liability anyway. But they 100% definitely will contest damages. They'll hire a medical expert who they know will toe the defense line and say that the client wasn't hurt and/or didn't really need the treatment they got. That's what they do on 100% of litigated cases unfortunately. Also pain and suffering damages aren't really the type of thing that can be decided on summary judgment.
I work at a firm that evaluated and gives opinions on a lot of fraud and misrepresentation claims for State Farm and I was told when I started that they would spend more money on us finding fraud and misrepresentation in the claim than what the claim would cost. Not sure how they handle auto accidents though, I have not had to deal with that.