At best, the insurance company will respond to your demand letter within 30 days. However, you generally have to wait anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months because no law sets a deadline. As the chronological chart illustrates, the average response time for insurance companies that handle most claims is approximately two months. Usually, the insurance company has about 30 days to investigate your claim.
An insurance company has 10 to 45 days to resolve a claim in most states, and it takes about 30 days to resolve an auto insurance claim on average. For example, insurers in New York must pay a claim within 35 business days, while insurers in Virginia must resolve a claim “reasonably promptly. It's also a good idea to alert your insurance company to keep them informed, even if you're not going to file a claim through it. If the damage to your car causes other problems in the future, they won't be covered by the at-fault driver's insurance company or your own policy.
Keep in mind that just as the insurance company is required to resolve your claim “promptly,” it is also required to report the accident and file your claim within a reasonable period of time. The Wrongful Claims Settlement Act is a set of laws in Kentucky that regulate how insurance companies should handle claims brought against them. For example, if you work with a small insurance company that has only one adjuster, it could take much longer to receive your payment. There is a provision within these laws that requires an insurance company to respond to any correspondence within 30 days.
If you think the insurance adjuster is taking too long to respond to your demand letter, your only practical option to speed things up is to start contacting you regularly until they respond. Insurance companies are not required to respond to demand letters, so they will ignore them or send a response. Finally, the delay could reflect a tactic by the insurance company to delay the process, hoping that it will give up or be impatient enough to accept a low settlement offer. So who keeps the money? If another driver is at fault and that driver's insurance pays for repairs, the insurer usually pays the insurance settlement to you or the body shop directly.
We can also protect your right to compensation, manage all communications with the insurer, fight for the compensation you deserve, and file a lawsuit if necessary. The insured must pay premiums on time and perform all other duties described in the insurance policy. Because insurance adjusters are trained in interview techniques designed to get claimants to say something that could undermine the value of a claim.
