If your commercial insurance carrier denied your claim, you are not alone. Businesses regularly lose millions of dollars because of denied insurance claims. Moreover, businesses whose carriers denied their insurance claims lose more than money. They expend time and effort fighting their insurance carrier—time and effort that could be used to run the business.
Common Commercial Claim Denials
Although businesses can insure and submit claims for almost any aspect of their operations, they most frequently experience losses such as:
- Hail damage
- Wind damage
- Tornado damage
- Fire damage
- Commercial fleet damage and liability
- Theft
- Vandalism
When an insurance company denies claims for covered events such as these, the business faces the very loss it was trying to prevent by acquiring the commercial insurance coverage.
Fighting the Commercial Insurance Carrier After a Denied Claim
There is a process for fighting a denied claim. Briefly, when a commercial insurance carrier denies a claim, a business should:
- Review the denial notice to identify the alleged reason for the denial. The most common reasons for denying a claim are lack of timeliness, uncovered injury or loss, suspicion of fraud, and exceeded coverage limits.
- Prepare an appeal. First, review your policy to be sure you have met the criteria for timeliness and you understand any coverage limits and claim procedures. Your appeal should indicate why the event in question should be covered by the policy. Be sure to include any other evidence that was not part of the initial claim.
- Sue the insurance company. If the carrier continues to deny your claim after an appeal, you can sue the insurer in civil court for breach of contract or bad faith.
Contact Our Lawyers for Help if Your Commercial Claim Was Denied
If you chose to sue your insurance carrier after it wrongly denied your claim, you will need to work with an experienced attorney who understands Texas insurance law. Moreover, even if you are not yet at the lawsuit stage of the process, you may wish to seek a lawyer’s advice about your options when an insurer denies your commercial claim.
Fighting insurance companies is time-consuming and expensive when you don’t do it every day. Contact our insurance attorneys for advice and action when a carrier wrongfully denies your claim.
