Insurance companies are always under pressure to ensure that their clients get compensated whenever they incur losses arising from insured incidents. The law governing insurance companies’ activities is very strict on the need for the companies to pay claims as may be necessary. However, insurance firms have been experiencing a massive challenge in identifying individuals who are genuine in their claims. Some of the clients always want to use insurance companies to gain underserving payments at the costs of these companies. According to Popow (2007, 56), some clients would understate the value of the property they insure to pay a small number of premiums. Others would try to cause accidents intentionally to get the benefit from the insurer. Some would even try to hide the truth to get the required compensation. This may lead to serious losses to these insurance firms. To avoid such instances, firms should find ways of identifying clients who are genuine in their cases. In case of a lawsuit of bad faith against an insured, a claim representative would be expected to perform some specific activities to make the lawsuit successful. This research paper seeks to analyze the activities that would be performed by a claim representative to manage such a lawsuit.
The claim representative has a major role to play in managing a lawsuit against an insured to manage the case. The jury will need evidence to support the lawsuit against the insured. The claim representative will be responsible for providing this evidence to convince the court that the insured is guilty as charged. The claim representative will review all the documents that were delivered by the insured describing his or her property. In the documents, the claim representative will note all the facts that were stated by the clients when applying for insurance. The claim representative will also analyze any changes about the property that could have been made by the client in the duration when the insurance policy was in force. The representative would then review the facts that were gathered about the property. This can be reports gathered about the property from the investigations of the insurance company, any financial documents that could reveal the truth about the property, police reports, or any other sources of information that could be used to get to know the truth about the property under insurance. The insurance representative would then compare the information provided by the insured, and the facts gathered independently about the insured property. Popow (2006, 78) notes that if there is any disparity, then the insurance company would have a case against the insured.
The claim representative would also need some of the facts that led to the incidents insured against, taking place. For instance, the representative would need to determine if the incident was motivated by the insured to claim for payments. In this regard, he or she would need to review reports from the police, medical records, and information from witnesses reports from agents or other relevant sources that can help prove that the claim is not genuine. The focus of the claim representative would be to identify facts that may indicate that at one moment, the insured cheated when providing information about the insured property to the insurance firm.
Works Cited
Popow, Donna. Property Loss Adjusting. Malvern: American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, 2007. Print.
Popow, Donna. Claim Handling Principles and Practices. Malvern: American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, 2006. Print.