There are tools in Georgia law which diligent attorneys can use to make insurance companies pay for failing to act in good faith to settle claims. However, to take advantage of these tools your attorney must be fast, diligent, and thorough. One large insurance company recently learned this lesson the hard way when they treated one of Burrow & Associates’ clients unfairly.
Our client was involved in a pedestrian accident where she was hit by someone driving negligently in a parking lot. The accident caused her to suffer a fracture, abrasions, and torn ligaments. Unfortunately, the cost of the emergency treatment alone was in excess of the limits of the insurance policy available to cover the loss. As such, there was no reason to wait before seeking the full limits of that policy. Moving quickly in this case resulted in a huge benefit to our client.
In Georgia, if an insurer has an opportunity to settle a case within the limits of their policy, but chooses not to, they could expose their own insured to paying for the excess damages personally. In cases where attorneys prove that the insurance company should not have rejected the settlement offer, insurers can be held liable to pay damages above what their policy allows. Their own insureds can allow the person they injured to pursue that claim against the insurance company instead of paying the judgment themselves.
When the insurance company in our client’s case rejected the opportunity to pay the limits of the policy, we took action right away to maximize our client’s ability to recover more than the policy limits. In the end, the insurance company paid an amount that was 50 times the limits of their policy. Because we acted quickly our client was able to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars more than she was expecting. We can be reached at (866) ATLANTA or www.LegalAtlanta.com.
e consultation to discuss all of your options. We can be reached at (866) ATLANTA or www.LegalAtlanta.com.