The role of the insurance company. The Denied Claim.
Baltimore personal injury and accident lawyers are keenly aware that the denied claim often has the same economic impact as the delayed claim.
Ultimately, whether the claim is delayed by the inaction of the insurance company, or denied, necessitating trial months or years down the road, the financial impact on the car accident victim, and the potential financial reward to the insurer, are the same.
Insurance companies are bound by statute, regulation and, in uninsured situations, fiduciary obligations to accept claims, unless there is an articulable reason to deny a claim. Claims cannot be denied for arbitrary reasons- in theory.
I Attorney Eric T. Kirk have seen insurers occasionally stretch this arbitrariness concept to the very edges of reality over the years. One of most well-known examples is a claim that has been denied as the adjuster cannot understand how someone could have been hurt, given that there was, in that adjuster’s opinion, too little property damage to the vehicles involved. That there is no medical evidence or scholarly literature suggesting that such a correlation between property damage below a certain level and the possibility of injury exists, would seem to push this rationale into the realm of caprice. Moreover, claims adjusters are almost certainly not medical doctors, so there would not be any independent opinion coming from one with expertise that there is no possibility of injury. The absence of any professional or scientific support for a position would seem to suggest, that it is position based on whim, or at least devoid of support in fact or science. Nevertheless, this is the very basis upon which thousands of claims are denied each year.
