Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog

Some people know what a Credit Life and Disability Policy is but not everybody. Essentially it is a policy of insurance that is purchased by a borrower of money and the policy is suppose to do two basic things. One, pay off the loan in the event the insured person dies and two, make the payments due on the borrowed money while a person is disabled for as long as the disability lasts.

Most of the time these are purchased in two situations. The first and most common is when someone mortgages their home. The second is when someone purchases an automobile. There are many other financial situations where a credit life and disability policy is offered to a borrower and sometimes the lender requires it to be purchased.

Another situation where these types of policies are seen is in credit card transactions. Lots of credit cards offer the coverage free of charge while others charge you a few dollars a month for the coverage. In the credit card situation it is usually a matter of knowing or remembering you have the coverage when the time comes for yourself or a surviving heir to apply for the benefit. We have not seen lots of situations where this benefit is denied or refused in a credit card situation and in the situations where it has occurred, we have been able to resolve the conflict with a few phone calls or certified letters. It has been rare to actually get involved in a lawsuit.

When these policies are part of an automobile purchase is where we have had the most litigation. These seem to almost always get denied. The reasons vary some but for the most part here is what happens. The automobile purchaser meets with the finance manager after deciding to purchase the car and the purchaser starts being offered all kinds of options for the car and financing one of which is the credit life and disability policy. The finance manager is sliding papers back and forth, checking boxes on the papers and asking questions, then telling and pointing to you a half dozen places for you to sign the papers.

The finance manager gets a commission for selling you these various options and when it comes to the insurance he justs wants to sell the policy in order to get the commission. So what he does, is either not ask you the questions that are on the application or asks you but does not pay attention to what you say, rather fills it out in such a way as to get coverage for you so that he gets his commission. He knows that most of the time it is not going to make and difference. The attitude is that if you never make a claim, "no harm, no foul". But if you do make a claim and something was not filled out correctly, your claim will be denied. It will be you, not the finance manager accused of fraud and lying on your application. After all, you signed it!

If you are paying for a credit life and disability policy that gets denied you probably have a winning case. Get to a Texas Claims Denial Attorney.

If you listen or watch the news much, especially around election time you would think that the only thing insurance companies ever do is pay claims. And not only do they pay claims, but they pay nothing but frivolous claims. And of course that is why your insurance rates are so high and why the above title would be a headline.

Politicians scream loud about the need for tort reform and about how there are too many lawsuits and too many people looking for a free ride. This is especially true in a Texas where there is a very conservative political environment. This is an issue that helps get a lot of politicians elected. George Bush was always invoking the evils of "trial lawyers".
So based on the above you would think it is unusual for an insurance company to actually deny a claim and that the companies only exist to pay people unwarranted claims. This thought is far from reality.

The reality is that the insurance companies play hardball when a claim is made. Not only do they play hardball but they also "cheat". Yeah I said it, "They Cheat".

One of the focuses of my practice and specifically my insurance law practice is going after and suing insurance companies that wrongfully deny claims. In doing that, I have found fraud, forgery, breaches of contracts, deceptive trade practices, and mis-representations in all kinds of form and manner.

Keep in mind that when a person buys insurance from an insurance company, the insurance company is making a bet. The bet is that you will pay them money for their protection but they will never have to protect you or if they do, they will pay out less than they took in from you. Whenever you make a claim for insurance benefits, the insurance company is losing its bet. They do not like losing their bets.

The first thing an insurance adjuster does when a claim is made is to verify whether or not there is coverage for the claim made. Example; a person is involved in a wreck and his car is a total loss. The driver calls in a claim for the insurance company to pay for the damage to his car. The adjuster checks to see if the driver had collision coverage. If all the driver had was liability then it may be an easy call, claim denied. But what if the driver had collision coverage? Then the agent looks for other things such as missed or late payments, mis-representations on the application, excluded driver, etc. And finally if everything looks good a dishonest agent or adjuster may make up a reason for denying the claim.

Finally when they decide they are on the hook for the claim then they look for reasons to lower the total amount of money they are going to have to pay such as low balling you on the value of the vehicle.

Keep in mind that insurance companies are making record profits, even after paying large salaries and bonuses to its upper management. And yeah, even after paying all those frivolous claims people make.

The reality is they deny claims all the time and deny proper claims made by good and honest people such as yourself who only expect the insurance company to live up to the bargain they entered into with you when you bought their insurance.