Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

If your father is sued, he should immediately send a copy of the lawsuit to the claims department at his insurance carrier. Often, insurance carriers will offer claimants a small amount of the potential value of the claim, thinking they might be hungry enough to accept the immediate cash. In this case, the other driver apparently is not and, the only way to get a better amount might be through a lawsuit against your father. Still, the carrier is contractually obligated to retain a lawyer for its insured and provide a defense and, ultimately, pay a judgment up to the policy limits.

Your are right it is his insurance company's job and also duty to take care of this claim and resolve it within the policy limits if possible. Your father shouldn�t have to pay anything out of his pocket.

Depending on which insurance company he has, his victims are probably being jerked around by his insurance company so that is why they sent the letter. His insurance company may have a good reason but mostly likely they are just chiseling the poor victims. They do this all the time.

So don't worry if he gets sued. He has coverage and his company will have to provide him a lawyer to defend the action (usually its one of their in house lawyers).

If he does get sued and served with a lawsuit make sure that it is immediately given or tendered to his insurance company so they can't weasel out of covering him.

Hopefully you can tell I am not too fond of insurance companies which are a necessary evil.

Good luck and hope that helps.

What both these guys left out is that your father doesn't have to wait to be sued. The insurance company has to deal with even the threat of a lawsuit. Your dad should send a copy of the letter to the insurance company and demand that they deal with it. If they really are low-balling the claimant and your father gets sued after that, not only will he be entitled to indemnity and defense, but he'll be entitled to go after his insurance company himself for putting him through a lawsuit on a claim that could have been settled. At that point the insurance company will have to hire "Cumis" counsel for him because their own attorneys will have a conflict of interest. When the insurance company starts paying TWO sets of lawyers, they can get very motivated to make the case go away.