Consumer Advisory: Boulder County Fires – Improving Policyholders’ Experience
Posted by Shareholder Tom Henderson, Chair of Burg Simpson’s Bad Faith Insurance Division
From the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies- Division of Insurance
Consumer Advisory: Boulder County Fires – Improving Policyholders’ Experience
In the aftermath of the Boulder County fires, a number of survivors have experienced unexpected challenges working with their homeowners’ insurance companies. As both a regulator of insurance companies in Colorado and a resource for people with concerns, questions and complaints about their insurance, the Division of Insurance (DOI) asked the homeowners’ insurance companies with claims from the fires to work differently on those underlying issues.
“There has been a tremendous amount of activity from insurance companies in processing claims from the Boulder County fires, including the many companies that set up at the Disaster Assistance Center to start helping their policyholders. That effort has been appreciated,” said Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway. “However, as we move further away from the fires, we are hearing consistent complaints from homeowners impacted by the fire. It is those complaints that made us ask the companies to step up and do better, and overall, the companies agreed. These efforts won’t fix everything, but I view them as a necessary step in helping people to recover faster.”
The Division asked the companies to go above and beyond what current State law requires them to do, and in many cases, beyond what their own policies require. The Division will continue to work with the companies to address issues as we help the community recover from the Boulder County fires.
Read the Consumer Advisory here.
Find more information about insurance and the fires on the Division’s Marshall Fire and Straight Line Winds Response website. You can reach the Division’s Consumer Services Team between 8:00 – 5:00 pm by calling 303-894-7490 or by sending an email to DORA_Insurance@state.co.us.
Tom Henderson and the Burg Simpson team have over four decades of experience analyzing and litigating these types of insurance policies. Mr. Henderson is the Chair of the Bad-Faith Insurance division of the firm’s Commercial Litigation. He spent the first twenty years of his practice representing the insurance companies, answering their questions about whether or not their policies provided coverage for certain losses. He has spent the past 12+ years of his practice exclusively representing insurance policyholders pursuing claims for insurance benefits owed by the insurance industry. Mr. Henderson and the attorneys at Burg Simpson use Mr. Henderson’s unusual background to their clients’ advantage because they know where the insurance industry weak spots are, where the smoking guns are hidden and how best to structure their clients’ cases to maximize the potential of getting the insurance companies to pay the benefits owed.
If the insurance companies refuse to pay the benefits owed by their policies, then suing them for bad faith is an option to consider. Mr. Henderson and the attorneys at Burg Simpson have successfully sued insurance companies for bad faith collecting millions of dollars for their clients when their own insurance companies improperly denied, underpaid, or slow paid claims.
Mr. Henderson has been consistently selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© in the field of Insurance Law. He has also been recognized as a People’s Choice Best Insurance Lawyer and has been selected to Super Lawyers® every year since 2014. In 2019 and 2020, he was selected as a Colorado Top Lawyer in insurance by 5280 Magazine.
Tom Henderson and the commercial litigation lawyers at Burg Simpson are available for a free consultation. Call us to discuss how we can help you. Call Burg Simpson for Help Now: 888 895 2080
