Unreasonable Insurance Practice "Bad Faith" refusal to settle a Florida Vehicular Accident Claim

#8 in a series of discussions on Florida’s Motor Vehicle No-Fault laws.

This discussion will be split into an analysis of those refusals by an which could possibly be justified, and those which are clearly the insurance company’s insurance company “bad faith” refusal to settle a case for injuries as a result of a motor vehicle accident in the State of Florida when it could and should have done so under the circumstances had it acted reasonably towards its insured.

As we have previously discussed, it is the insurance company’s adjuster’s role to find issue with any possible factor concerning the victim’s claims for bodily injuries and damages as a result of a vehicular accident in Florida. In order to prevail in a personal injury claim, the victim, through his skilled personal injury attorney, has the burden to prove that the wrongdoer was 100% at fault for the accident, that the victim has suffered “threshold injuries”, as defined by Florida’s Motor Vehicle No-Fault statute and that such injuries were directly related to the accident. It is the insurance adjuster’s role to attempt to disprove each and every aspect of that burden of proof. Insurers will often attempt and have the right to attempt to prove that the victim was anywhere from 1-100% comparatively at fault, and that the victim suffered no causally related injuries. These affirmative defenses could be alleged with regards to if the victim had a pre-existing similar injury or condition, had a previous or subsequent accident which could account for the victim’s complaints, or by simply using an insurance company paid doctor to minimize or discredit the victim’s allegations of injury.