I was in a wreck and the other party was at fault. I contacted his insurance company and opened a claim. They denied my claim and said it was because the driver at fault didn’t have a license. I hired a lawyer to handle it now. If it is discovered that they acted in bad faith can I sue the company?
“I hired a lawyer to handle it now”
Then why are you asking here? Go talk to the attorney you are paying to give you answers.
You should have your own coverage for Uninsured Motorist on your own policy. That is what it is for, idiots who drive with no insurance of their own. Check that out with your insurance agent, they should be the ones to go to bat for you in just such a case. My teenage daughter was involved in a similar incident years ago. Our insurance, Allstate went after the uninsured , non licensed driver. With a threat of being sued and jail time the other driver made arrangements to pay Allstate back. We had to do nothing, Allstate did it all for us. Daughters car was fixed, other party even had to pay our deductible.
Did you had uninsured driver coverage?
Why hire a lawyer?
You pay insurance so lawyers can go to bat for you.
File a claim with your insurance next time…
As a general rule, you cannot sue for bad faith. This is 1st party coverage and you are 3rd party. The driver of the other company might try and sue his own insurance company for bad faith for denying the claim, but that would be between him and his company.
There are a couple of insurance companies out there that have an exclusion in their policy that will allow them to deny any claim if the driver is unlicensed, or had a suspended or revoked license. So I am guessing you received a letter from them stating they denied this since the driver did not have a license.
Do you have uninsured coverage on your policy? If so, they will pay and then go after the at fault driver for reimbursement of any damages/injuries you sustained in this accident. But if not, you will be SOL or have to have your lawyer sue the guy personally and hope he has any assets that you can collect from him.
Talk to your lawyer since you hired him for his legal advice on how to proceed.
good luck
Try to deal it out of pocket, otherwise insurance rates will go up much more. You can check how quotes will change here – autoinsurance.noneto.com