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Insurance Bad Faith and Deviation From Industry Standards: Using Experts to Help Juries Understand Claims Adjusting

Strategies and Controversies When Claims Handling Experts Testify as to Whether Policy Provisions Were Applied Pursuant to Known Law

Recording of a 90-minute CLE video webinar with Q&A

This program is included with the Strafford CLE Pass. Click for more information.
This program is included with the Strafford All-Access Pass. Click for more information.

Conducted on Monday, October 28, 2024

Recorded event now available

or call 1-800-926-7926

This CLE course will discuss strategies for using claims handling experts in various types of bad faith insurance cases, including first-party property, underinsured/uninsured motorist, and excess liability claims, as well as expert qualifications, the admissibility of their testimony concerning legal and quasi-legal subjects, including the insurance industry's interpretation of certain policy provisions. Recent cases leading to bad faith awards or favorable resolutions through mediation (where the speakers participated as bad faith experts) in cutting edge first party and third-party coverage disputes will be addressed.

Description

Insurer claims handling manuals, training materials, and guidelines are often unavailable or offer little useful information. Insurance claims experts explain how adjusting works and offer information and analysis about the training, policies and procedures, and policy interpretation by insurance claims handlers and whether their subsequent decisions in covering or denying claims met with industry standards.

Insurance claims handlers must analyze and apply law, policies, statutes, and regulations when they adjust claims. Proponents contend claims experts should be able to testify as to whether the handler properly interpreted and applied the relevant policy provisions in accordance with known law. Others contend this type of testimony invades the province of the court to construe the policy and should be excluded.

Either way, the admissibility of expert evidence is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and state counterparts, as well as interpretive decisions. There are no established criteria for being deemed a claims handling expert.

Listen as this highly experienced panel of claims handling experts who have testified in deposition and trial throughout the country discuss the use of claims handling experts in bad faith insurance claims and the controlling evidentiary rules.

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Outline

  1. Reasons to use a claims handling expert
  2. Topics about which claims experts testify
  3. Qualifications
  4. Admissibility under FRE 702/Daubert
  5. Strategies for plaintiffs
  6. Strategies for defendants

Benefits

The panel will review these and other pivotal issues:

  • What qualifies one as an insurance bad faith expert?
  • How closely does the expert's experience have to match the subject of the proposed testimony?
  • Can claims handlers testify on mixed questions of law and fact?

Faculty

Gauntlett, David
David A. Gauntlett
Principal
Gauntlett Law

Mr. Gauntlett is lead counsel in intellectual property antitrust coverage disputes pending in over 30 states throughout...  |  Read More

Miller, Charles
Charles Miller
Attorney
Trial Guides

Mr. Miller is a licensed attorney in California.  Since 1990, his practice has been devoted to insurance...  |  Read More

Access Anytime, Anywhere

Strafford will process CLE credit for one person on each recording. All formats include course handouts.

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