Wright Commercial Litigation represents policyholders—including businesses, nonprofits, homeowners, commercial property owners, executives, and others—in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and throughout Texas with insurance coverage disputes and bad faith claims, often on a contingency or hybrid basis.
Insurance is a form of risk management that acts as a hedge against outsized loss by paying a premium which is pooled with many others to spread the costs across a larger group. Those who suffer a covered loss are paid out of the aggregated pool of funds with the remainder spent on administration costs or kept as profit. That puts significant power in the hands of the aggregator—an insurance company—while also creating an incentive to deny or minimize payouts to increase profits.
As a counterbalance, Texas law obligates insurance providers and adjusters to act in the utmost good faith and treat insureds fairly, or else face the prospect of multiplied damages.
When an insurance company denies coverage, undervalues a loss, or fails to defend and indemnify a third-party claim, it takes a skilled professional to seek redress for all the breaches that may have occurred along the way. Insurance companies are repeat players in litigation with large staffs of adjusters and attorneys looking for ways to avoid payment if reasonably possible. In that quest, however, sometimes they disregard facts or interpret policy language in strained ways to avoid coverage.
Wright Commercial Litigation helps policyholders level the playing field by having a skilled insurance attorney advocating for you to ensure every covered loss is fully compensated and that an insurance company or adjuster who truly does act in bad faith is held to account for its improper conduct.
Contact the firm today for an initial evaluation of your insurance coverage dispute and see if your case can be taken on a contingency or reduced fee/hybrid basis.
Representing Dallas-Fort Worth Clients in Insurance Coverage Disputes of Bad Faith
Any risk can be covered by insurance … for the right price.
Determining that is the job of an insurance company’s underwriters (subject to several limitations provided by law), with a policyholder entitled to expect all claims which are covered by the language will be honored and promptly paid, especially since those suffering a loss typically cannot afford the delay.
Wright Commercial Litigation assists businesses and individual clients with diverse types of insurance disputes, often on a contingency or hybrid basis, including:
- Commercial property losses
- Commercial general liability (CGL) policies
- Homeowner, residential, and dwelling policies
- Professional liability (or errors and omissions (E&O) and malpractice) policies
- Director and officer (D&O) liability
- Life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D)
- Cancer, critical illness, disability, and other cash benefit health care treatment policies
- Oil and gas insurance policies
- Farm and ranch insurance policies
- Duty to defend and indemnification disputes
While the nature of an insurance dispute can vary substantially depending on the policy or type of loss, the principles applicable to claim adjudication—or “adjusting” a claim (defined as “to bring to a more satisfactory state” or “settle”)—remain the same no matter the language used in an insurance contract or whether the policyholder is an individual, small business, or a large corporate enterprise itself.
All policyholders are entitled to be treated fairly and in good faith.
Unfortunately, some insurance companies look for ways to deny claims involving individuals and small businesses in particular, due to the greater imbalance of information and lack of leverage available to those with less resources. Bad insurers can use any number of otherwise legitimate reasons to deny claims in improper ways, such as by declaring:
- The damage was not caused by a covered event
- The policy language carves out an exclusion for the type of loss
- Someone else already paid for the damages that are subject to the policy
- The claim was not filed within a required period of time
- The damage is less than the policy’s deductible
- The property loss was exaggerated or less than claimed
Insurance contracts are complicated documents with numerous definitions, exclusions, and even further exceptions to the exclusions, and can have very convoluted payout calculations–such as actual cash value (ACV), depreciation, and replacement costs resulting in variable contingent amounts–and conditional loss payment requirements.
If an insurance company has denied your business, commercial, homeowners, or cash benefits insurance policy claim for reasons that you suspect are invalid or simply do not make sense to you, then contact Wright Commercial Litigation for an evaluation and to explore your options.
Common Types of Insurance Coverage Disputes and Claims
Wright Commercial Litigation assists with a variety of insurance coverage disputes that regularly occur, often on a contingency or hybrid basis, including:
First-Party Property Damage or Loss
Businesses and individual homeowners (or their mortgage companies) recognize the importance of having insurance to protect valuable real estate, property, structures, contents, and inventory. No matter whether a policy is commercial or residential, there can be claims for loss related to:
- Collapses
- Construction defect
- Freezing weather and burst pipes
- Natural disasters like a fire, tornado, hurricane, or flood
- Negligent, intentional, or accidental conduct of others
- Professional liability and errors in making a repair or improvement
- Storm damages from high wind, lightning, rain, or hail
- Theft or vandalism
- Water damage due to the failure of an appliance, device, or mechanical/plumbing system
These are generally known as “first-party” insurance claims because they involve harm suffered directly by the holder of the policy. It is important to get a qualified attorney or public adjuster involved early on if you suspect that your insurance company may be trying to deny or underpay a valid property damage claim, as that may require securing other professionals to conduct inspections and properly document the loss or determine and calculate the damages.
Business Interruption
Business interruption insurance—also known as loss of business income or business continuation coverage—is a type of insurance that helps a company get back on its feet by replacing the income lost due to covered events or a destruction of assets. It is important to read this type of policy closely to know what types of events trigger coverage. Some are limited to direct physical harm or wide-scale tangible disasters, while others can also cover intangible events such as communicable diseases (like the COVID-19 pandemic, a subject of many lawsuits at the time).
No matter the reason for your loss of business income, it is important to have an experienced commercial litigator involved in these types of insurance disputes because the damages may include forecasting and calculating revenue in a way similar to lost profits in a business dispute, ancillary expenses (like mortgages, loan payments, payroll), and the costs of relocating or starting up operations elsewhere.
Third-Party Liability and the Duty to Defend or Indemnify
Many types of insurance policies also cover the other category of insurance coverage disputes: those involving “third-party” claims. In general, that means insurance coverage for the risk of a lawsuit or claims made against the policyholder by either a customer, guest, or some other third party.
For example, small and midsized businesses who deal with the public regularly carry commercial general liability (CGL) insurance to protect against claims arising from premises defects, or business activities such as false advertising, data breach, product liability, defamation, and more. Those in a field requiring professional skill or judgment—such as contractors, engineers, doctors, attorneys, and others—carry errors and omissions (E&O) or “malpractice” coverage. Companies that raise capital from private equity or other investors usually will carry directors and officers (D&O) coverage as well, to protect against claims of mismanagement by the executives. Lastly, even individual homeowner policies provide a type of third-party coverage for when a guest is injured on your property.
Third-party liability coverage is meant to pay not only damages (such as a judgment or settlement) but also cover the costs associated with a legal defense, which may include attorneys’ fees, experts, and court fees. All of them require notice to be given to the insurance company.
In the event of a claim, demand, or suit by a third party, it is thus very important to notify your insurance carrier immediately to ensure your rights to a defense and coverage are not inadvertently impaired. Unfortunately, some carriers look for ways even then to avoid their duty to defend you or your business (often under a “reservation of rights”) and then, if there is ultimately a loss, they will decline to indemnify (or pay) the settlement or a judgment to the fullest extent required by a policy. Failure to do so or act prudently in the process—such as the insurance company not agreeing to settle a claim within policy limits if reasonable—can give rise to extracontractual liability, including what is known as a Stowers claim in Texas, which can make the insurance carrier liable for amounts far beyond the limits of your policy.
Bad Faith
A failure to comply with the terms of an insurance policy is a breach of contract like any other. Unlike other contracts in Texas, however, insurance companies have an implied duty to act in the utmost good faith towards their policyholder. Both the common law and statutes enacted by the Texas Legislature penalize bad faith conduct of an insurance company or its adjusters, which may include:
- Failing to timely acknowledge and decide a claim
- Failing to thoroughly investigate the circumstances in making such a decision
- Using a substandard investigation as a pretext to deny or underpay a claim
- Relying on information known to be incomplete, incorrect, or the result of bias
- Attempting to settle a claim for less than its full value or as leverage to pay less on other claims
- Delaying, discounting, or denying a claim without a valid reason or explanation
- Misrepresenting the terms of the insurance policy
- Withholding relevant information from a policyholder
- Applying unreasonable interpretations of the policy language to deny or limit a claim
Bad faith is punished in Texas law by the ability to recover an award of multiplied damages, which can increase the recovery of a policyholder by up to three times actual loss under both the Insurance Code and Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). Obtaining such a recovery requires special attention to policy conditions and statutory requirements before suit is filed though, as well as skill in litigation to uncover the more subtle forms of bad faith that may be evidenced only within an insurance company’s own files or history of dealing with similar claims.
Prompt Pay Act
Insurance companies have a statutory obligation to not only pay covered losses, but to do it promptly. Some insurers and adjusters illegitimately attempt to extend claims long as possible in the hopes it will cause an uninformed policyholder to accept less than what they are entitled to or potentially lose rights by waiting too long. Other bad insurance professionals underpay claims that a small business or individual is less likely to have the time and resources to counteract such misconduct.
Texas law accordingly provides for the recovery of attorney’s fees as a remedy for the failure to promptly decide and pay a valid insurance claim, along with statutory interest at the rate of 18% (or 10% for certain weather-related claims), which provides a disincentive towards sharp dealing. In good news for policyholders, the Texas Supreme Court has confirmed that the requirements of the Prompt Pay Act apply even when an insurance company attempts to use an appraisal process in unfair ways to delay paying amounts that were legitimately due at the beginning.
Why You Need Wright Commercial Litigation for Your Insurance or Bad Faith Claim in Dallas-Fort Worth
No matter the type of insurance coverage dispute, the result often can turn on the details of just a few words in a very long and complicated policy document, or the nuanced aspects of whether an insurance company complied with its duty to act in good faith.
Wright Commercial Litigation’s principal attorney—Jason E. Wright—has substantial knowledge of all types of coverage disputes and can help you obtain every penny you were entitled to and should have received up front (and sometimes more if the insurance company acted bad enough).
If you are facing unwarranted delay, denial, or underpayment of an insurance claim involving any type of insurance, contact the firm today for a confidential evaluation. Often the firm can offer to take your case on a contingency or reduced fee/hybrid basis to help you level the playing field, and help resolve insurance disputes by appraisal, negotiation, mediation, settlement, or litigation if it becomes necessary.
Contact the firm here to request a consultation on your insurance or bad faith dispute.
Wright Commercial Litigation serves clients throughout Texas, including in McKinney, Collin County, Dallas County, Denton County, and beyond with their insurance claims and disputes.
