Articles Posted in Minnesota

Since 2008, Minnesota has had a bad-faith statute that penalizes an insurance company for its unreasonable denial of a first-party insurance claim. But it was only earlier this month that a Minnesota appellate court interpreted the statute to require insurance companies to conduct a reasonable investigation and fairly evaluate its results to establish a reasonable basis for denying the claim. In so doing, the court rejected the interpretation offered by the insurance company: that the policyholder must prove there are no facts or evidence upon which the insurance company could rely to deny coverage. That interpretation would have allowed insurers to rely on post hoc justifications for denying coverage. The court’s rejection of that argument is an important development in bad-faith law that will likely affect both suits brought in Minnesota and those in other jurisdictions where courts might look to this decision for guidance in connection with many types of insurance claims. Continue Reading ›