A resident of Grand Prairie recently caught his insurance agent in Dallas committing fraud. The agent was taking the cash payments for the premiums from the resident and hand writing a receipt. Sounds okay so far. Next, the agent was pocketing the money rather than forwarding the payment to the…
A resident of Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth, Weatherford, or any other area in Texas can sue an insurance company for violations of the Texas Insurance Code under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. This is important because both of these areas of the law allow for favorable theories of…
An Appeals Court in San Antonio, Texas, has recently handed down a decison that discusses the above question. The case is, Lancer Insurance Company v. Oscar Perez, et al, and was decided on November 4, 2009. The Lancer case involved members of a high school band going on an overnight…
The previous post to this blog talked about penalties Texas insurance companies face when they do not properly handle a claim that is presented to them by one of their insureds. Recently an insurance case was tried in Federal Court in Mississippi. The case arose out of a lose suffered…
Let’s say your house in Dallas burns down and the insurance company wrongfully denies your claim. Or your boat in Weatherford sinks in the lake and your insurance company tries to tell you they are not going to pay because of a late payment on your insurance policy. How about…
Can it be a surprise? Insurance companies appear to be getting caught in under paying on claims. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) seems to be caught in some controversy regarding its claims handling along the Texas Gulf Coast. Keep in mind the problems being experienced could just as easily…
Yesterdays blog discussed actions that can be taken by the Texas Department of Insurance when a person commits a deceptive act or practice under Chapter 541 of the Texas Insurance Code or Section 17.46, Business & Commerce Code. Here the discussion will be about a persons’ “private causes of action”.…
Subchapter C, of the Texas Insurance Code deals with how the Texas Department of Insurance examines, investigates, and determines whether a person engaged in the business of insurance has engaged in an unfair method of competition or unfair or deceptive act or practice prohibited in the business of insurance. This…
Texas insurance laws often times require that the insurance company issueing a policy, sell certain types of insurance with at least a minimal amount of coverage. The situation most people are familiar with is that related to automobile insurance coverage. In Texas, according to Texas Transportation Code, Section 601.072, a…
Most people have heard the terms, “Good faith”, “Bad faith”, “The duty of good faith and fair dealing”, and “Statutory bad faith”. The question would be: What do these terms mean and why do we care? In Texas, as in many other states, the duty of an insurance company to…