Homeowners' Insurance

Four Reasons for Homeowners’ Wrongful Claim Denials

If you have purchased and keep you homeowners’ insurance policy current, shouldn’t the insurance provider be there to support you financially when needed? Not necessarily. Every homeowner’s insurance policy includes specific provisions that may allow the insurer to deny coverage to policyholders. An insurance claim lawyer will evaluate the circumstances surrounding your case to determine whether your claim was denied for legitimate reasons. Our wrongful denial insurance claim attorneys are here to assist you in navigating this process. Using our extensive legal experience, we can see if your claim was denied wrongful and handle what comes next if it was.

Your homeowners’ claim might have been denied due to:

• Deductible amount: Like car insurance, your homeowners’ insurance comes with a deductible or an amount you must pay yourself before your insurer chips in. Your claim can be denied if the damage is under your deductible amount.  Deductibles might even change within your policy depending on the type of “peril” that damaged your home.
• Uncovered peril: A peril is an incident that causes damage to your home, like a windstorm, flood, earthquake, etc. Coverage for all possible “perils” is basically nonexistent. Standard homeowners’ insurance policies cover a surprisingly limited number of perils.  For example, homeowners’ insurance often does not cover flooding caused by a burst pipe.
• Misplaced liability: When a third party causes damage to your home, they are more than likely responsible for paying the damages, at least according to most insurance companies. Your homeowners’ insurance provider will distance themselves from the situation if another party is to blame. For example, if you hire someone to trim a tree in your yard and it falls on your roof, then your homeowners’ insurance will not trigger. Instead, you will need an insurance roof claim lawyer to determine what to do next.
• Maintenance: Typically, a homeowners’ insurance policy does not cover maintenance needed to keep your home habitable and happy. Only necessary repairs after a covered peril or singular occurrence will be covered.
• Wrongful Denial: Insurance companies often use bad faith tactics to avoid paying up even when peris fall squarely within their contract. Most homeowner’s policies cover fire damage, but some insurance companies may refuse to provide coverage following a fire, arguing that you or a third party may have intentionally caused the fire. In that case, you’ll need to rely on an insurance fire claim attorney to combat the insurance company’s wrongful insurance claim denial.

How Insurance Companies Sidestep Responsibilities

While the aforementioned reasons for a homeowners’ wrongful claim insurance denial are valid, the reasoning behind them might not be. Some insurance companies are notorious for bending the truth – or plainly ignoring it – to save themselves from making a payout to an insurance policyholder.

For example, your insurer might lowball the cost of the damage to your home to try to get it below your deductible amount. Or, they may argue on slight technicalities that the peril is not covered by your policy, even though the plain language of the policy’s plain language implies it is.

When you let our insurance claim attorneys from Aizenman Law Group act as your legal representatives, you will be ready for any tactics your insurer might use to avoid paying you in full. With our experiences as former insurance defense lawyers, we are ready to challenge your insurer’s wrongful claim. Our Tulsa wrongful denial insurance claim lawyers are former insurance defense attorneys, giving them unique insight into how insurance companies will think and act in your case. We can help with any part of the process, from filling a claim and appealing it to litigation over an insurance dispute