What LIFE insurance companies have had a bad record in denying legitimate claims
Life insurance is a serious business that affects millions of people from all over the world on a regular basis. For people without a life insurance policy, and for those who are not happy with their existing policy, finding a reputable and trustworthy company to deal with is an very serious concern. There are a number of ways to find out about the reputation of an individual life insurance firm, and even a few dedicated authorities that deal with the listing and comparison of individual companies across the world. However, before it is possible to list the various firms that have a bad reputation in denying legitimate death claims, it is important to understand the notion of bad faith insurance and what it means for individual policy holders.
Bad faith insurance refers to a collection of practices where insurers knowingly commit or perform a number of specific practices that are in bad faith in relation to their policy holders. Bad faith insurance conduct includes a number of malicious, fraudulent, and oppressive practices, many of which are designed especially to deny legitimate claims and make more profit for individual life insurance firms. Some of the more well known bad faith practices include a misrepresentation of pertinent facts, a refusal to pay claims without carrying out a reasonable investigation, and attempting to make a pay out that is less than originaly agreed upon. There are a number of online and offline resources that are dedicated to listing well known bad faith insurers, including the well known Fight Bad Faith Insurance Companies (FBIC) organisation in the United States of America. The FBIC have made a list of well known bad faith insurers, some of which are international companies and others of which solely operate in the United States.
http://www.ft.com/yourmoney/compare/lifeassurance
The latest FBIC ranking from 2008 lists the top 50 and bottom 50 insurance groups, many of whom deal directly with life insurance policies. The top of the hall of shame insurers is an insurance group called The Hartford, followed closely by State Farm and Allstate. After these top three bad faith insurers, noted as 'do not buy' on the official listing, there are 47 more that make up the top 50 of the worst insurers. From 4th to 10th place on the listing of claims denied are the firms Unum, AIG, American Family, Farmers, Travelers, Metlife, and Assurant Health. While no insurance company in the world is totally spotless in terms of their reputation, and companies differ across the world in terms of their records, this list is a great place to start for people who are looking to find a reputable life insurance company that they can trust for the long term.