Atlanta Bad Faith Insurance Lawyer
Atlanta Bad Faith Insurance Attorney Overview
Insurance is a promise you can’t cash until your worst day. You pay in for years, quietly, and count on the company to be there when the house burns or the diagnosis lands.
Sometimes it’s not there. The insurance company stalls. It denies. It goes hunting through your policy for a loophole to slip out of. When an insurer breaks its promise on purpose, that’s bad faith, and in Georgia, you can make it pay for such dishonesty.
Why do insurers do it? Profit, plain and simple. Some companies decide their margins matter more than the customers they swore to protect, and they bet you won’t know the difference. If you’re reading this, you will know the difference. An Atlanta bad-faith insurance lawyer at Bey & Associates can help you fight back and recover the benefits you’re owed, sometimes with a penalty on top.
Understanding the Basics of Bad Faith Insurance Lawsuits in Georgia
Georgia recognizes two main kinds of insurance bad faith, and they pay out very differently.
The first kind is about your own insurer. If it refuses to pay a valid claim and a court finds it acted in bad faith, Georgia law (O.C.G.A. § 33-4-6) makes it pay up. You get:
- The benefits you were owed,
- A penalty of 50 percent of the insurer’s liability or $5,000 (whichever is greater)
- Your attorney’s fees.
- There is one catch here: you generally have to make a written demand and give the insurer 60 days to pay before you can go after that penalty.
The second is about a third-party liability insurer that passes up a fair chance to settle a claim within your policy limits. If you get hit later with a judgment above your coverage, the insurer will have to pay the whole thing, not just the policy limit.
That’s the rule from a landmark 1992 Georgia case, Southern General Insurance Co. v. Holt, and it still governs today. Exposure like that can dwarf the original policy.
Here’s an example: Your policy covers $50,000. The injured person offers to settle for that $50,000. Your insurer says no, deciding to roll the dice at trial. Your insurer loses at trial, and the jury awards $500,000. Under Holt, your insurer can be forced to pay the full $500,000, not just the $50,000 you paid for. That’s why the exposure can dwarf the original policy.
Your specific situation shapes what you can recover, so it’s worth sorting out early with a lawyer.
An Atlanta resident can bring a bad faith claim across many kinds of coverage, including:
- Auto insurance.
- Homeowner’s insurance.
- Fire insurance.
- Legal and medical malpractice insurance.
- Medical/dental insurance.
- General commercial liability insurance.
- Errors and omissions insurance.
One more wrinkle: if your policy came through your job, a federal law called ERISA may preempt Georgia’s bad faith rules. Our insurance lawyers can tell you whether that applies to you.
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