LONG INVESTIGATION REASONABLY FOLLOWING UP ON “RED FLAGS” IS NOT BAD FAITH DELAY (Western District)
Plaintiff’s house burned down. Before ultimately paying full benefits, the insurer conducted a lengthy, detailed, and wide-ranging arson investigation. The insured brought a breach of contract action for the delayed payment, and a bad faith action alleging there was no evidence to support the arson investigation. The court granted the insurer summary judgment on both claims.
First, “where the insurance company has paid the benefits under the policy, the insured cannot maintain an action for breach of contract.” Payment “negates any breach of contract action,” where the insurer has paid full policy limits, and there is no evidence of a failure to compensate. Even if there was a payment delay, there were no damages from that delay in this case.
On the bad faith claim, the court recognized an insurer can conduct investigations of questionable claims without acting in bad faith. “Where an insurer sees ‘red flags’ that cause concern of insurance fraud and prompt an investigation, the insurer has a reasonable basis for investigation, and is therefore not liable for claims of bad faith.” Red flags can include, e.g., (1) an insured’s financial motive in seeking the insurance proceeds, such as debts exceeding income; (2) a fire marshal’s investigating for arson; and (3) an insurer’s investigation revealing that the fire could not have started as the fire department initially believed.
In this case, there were red flags sufficient to warrant the insurer’s lengthy and multi-faceted investigation, and there was no actionable bad faith.
The court further observed that while payment delay can be the basis for bad faith, or a bad faith factor, such delay is only relevant to bad faith where the insurer “knew that it had no basis to deny the claimant.” In addition, “[w]hile delay in paying a claim is relevant to determining an insurer’s bad faith, it is not dispositive, and does not, on its own, ‘necessarily constitute bad faith.’” Moreover, “even if the insurer is solely responsible for the delay, as long as the delay is due to the insurer’s need to investigate further, or even to negligence, there is no bad faith.”
Here, the insured did not produce clear and convincing evidence to establish the insurer knew its payment delay was baseless. To the contrary, the record showed the insurer reasonably believed there were potential grounds to deny the insured’s claim warranting further investigation. The court found the insurer had a reasonable basis to conduct a lengthy investigation, and reasonably pursued all avenues of investigation as new information arose, until it decided to pay the claim after all of those road were finally traveled.
