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Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch Isn’t Quite Dead Yet

The history of third-party bad faith claim decisions brought under state Unfair Claims Settlement Practices statutes consists of more than three decades’ worth of roller coaster battles between plaintiffs and insurers.

By Ken Brownlee, CPCU | Updated on April 01, 2011
When the infamous Calif. case involving Royal Globe was overturned in 1988, a headline in one publication read, “Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch Is Dead!” Unfortunately, the witch’s ghost still manages to haunt state supreme courts across the land.

The history of third-party bad faith claim decisions brought under state Unfair Claims Settlement Practices statutes consists of more than three decades’ worth of roller coaster battles between plaintiffs and insurers. Some of those cases have been similar in that each time insurers seem to have “won the war,” the battle resume in a new forum, or under a different law or court decision. Even in Calif. where The Crawford Risk Review declared the old witch’s demise, I have found traces of her footprints on top of a few graves in the insurance company cemeteries.

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