As an example, your insurer might refuse to compensate you for the personal belongings damaged by rain, arguing that your house was flooded and you don’t have coverage for that.
When disaster strikes most homeowners in South Dakota will take comfort in the knowledge that their home insurance will cover all the damages and they will be able to rebuild their lives. Unfortunately, many of them will be faced with totally unreasonable delays or an unjust denial of their legitimate claim. This can be very distressing when your house needs major repairs and you don’t know who to turn to. If you find yourself in such a desperate situation, the best thing you can do is to look up the best homeowners insurance claim denial lawyers in South Dakota and let them take charge of your problems.
What are the most common insurance claim denial reasons in South Dakota?
Before you can file an appeal you have to wait for the motivation of the denial decision. Under South Dakota law, an insurance company is obligated to send you a letter explaining the reasons why your claim was denied and they need to do so promptly. This is sort of vague as a time frame. You may have to wait weeks before you receive the motivation, if they don’t somehow forget about it altogether. When you need to fix your home and replace damaged items you cannot afford to wait. Also, you don’t want to miss the deadline for filing an internal appeal. In this case, don’t hesitate to contact a seasoned home insurance claims lawyer in Sioux Falls and get legal advice.
Your lawyer will want to see the motivation letter and will review your policy to determine if the company had valid reasons to deny your claim or they are simply trying to avoid paying you the damages you deserve.
In most cases, the insurance company will invoke lack of coverage to deny your claim. You will need a lawyer with many years of practice in this field to understand the confusing wording on your policy and establish whether the damage to your house is covered or not.
As an example, your insurer might refuse to compensate you for the personal belongings damaged by rain, arguing that your house was flooded and you don’t have coverage for that.
Or they might deny your claim for a flooded basement saying the walls and the items there were damaged by water seepage and not by the burst pipe you reported. Seepage is not covered by standard home insurance, while burst pipes are.
Other reasons commonly cited to deny a claim are incomplete documentation or filing errors. This can happen quite often and you’re probably not to blame for that, as insurance companies purposefully ask for tons of documents, many of them useless or irrelevant. To avoid such a situation you should get a lawyer to help you prepare the correct documentation.
What are my chances if I file an appeal?
Your lawyer will help you prepare the internal appeal and submit yet more documents proving the validity of your claim. The insurance company is obligated to review your file and come to a fair decision. If they don’t, this is all your lawyer will need to file a lawsuit accusing the insurer of bad faith practices. Or they can just threaten to sue. If the insurer guys are aware that what they’re doing is illegal they won’t risk going to court and will eventually agree to settle.
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