Delayed Claims
Your insurer is not saying no. It is saying later.
Months of inspections, requests, and reassignments with no payment is not bad luck — it is a strategy, and it has legal limits. Insurers owe you decisions within set timeframes, and there are consequences when they do not deliver them.
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What stalling looks like
The rotating adjuster
Your file changes hands three, four, five times. Each new adjuster starts over, requests documents you already sent, and the clock restarts. Nobody ever owns the decision.
The endless document request
Every time you send what was asked for, a new request arrives. Receipts, then photographs, then a recorded statement, then a sworn proof of loss — arriving one at a time rather than all at once.
The inspection that never gets scheduled
The engineer is coming. The engineer’s report is being reviewed. The report went to a supervisor. Weeks pass between each step, and the season for repairs passes with them.
Silence
Calls unreturned, emails unanswered, no written decision either way. Your claim is neither approved nor denied — it simply sits, which costs the carrier nothing and costs you a great deal.
Why delay works for your insurer
Every month a claim goes unpaid is a month the carrier holds your money. Meanwhile the pressure on you increases: the tarp is still on the roof, the rain is still coming in, contractors have moved on to other jobs, and the damage grows. A policyholder under that pressure accepts less. That is the entire mechanism.
It also works because delay is difficult to see from inside. Each individual request looks reasonable. It is only when you lay the file out end to end — dates, requests, responses, and the gaps between them — that the pattern becomes obvious. Documenting that pattern is one of the first things we do.
Insurers are on a clock, even when they act like they are not
Louisiana and Florida both impose statutory timeframes on carriers for acknowledging a claim, beginning an investigation, and paying undisputed amounts. Those deadlines are not suggestions, and a carrier that blows through them without a reasonable basis can face consequences beyond simply paying what it always owed.
That is why the tone of a claim frequently changes the week a law firm appears on it. The delay costs the carrier nothing while you are the only one keeping track. It costs something once someone is documenting every missed deadline in a form a court will read.
What we do about a stalled claim
We take over the correspondence, so the requests come to us instead of arriving at your kitchen table on a Saturday. We put the carrier on written notice of what is outstanding and when it was first requested. We demand payment of the amounts that are not actually in dispute, which are often substantial and often sitting unpaid while a smaller disagreement is used as the reason nothing moves.
When a carrier keeps stalling after all of that, the delay itself becomes part of the case we bring.
Common questions
How long can an insurance company take to pay a claim?
Both Louisiana and Florida set statutory timeframes for acknowledging a claim, completing the investigation, and paying undisputed amounts. The specific periods differ by state and by the type of loss, and both states have amended them recently. If your claim has sat for months without a written decision, that is worth a call.
My adjuster keeps changing. Is that normal?
It is common, particularly after a named storm when carriers surge in temporary staff. Common is not the same as acceptable. Each reassignment that restarts your file from zero is a delay you did not cause and should not absorb.
Should I keep sending the documents they ask for?
Yes — keep cooperating, and keep a dated record of everything you send and when you sent it. That record is precisely what demonstrates a pattern of delay later. What you should not do is assume the requests will stop on their own.
Can I get more than my claim amount if my insurer stalled?
Potentially. Both states provide remedies beyond the claim itself where an insurer failed to act within statutory timeframes without a reasonable basis. Whether that applies to your claim depends on the specific facts and the documented timeline.
These answers are general information about property insurance claims, not legal advice about your claim. Every policy and every loss is different — talk to us about yours.
Read more on this
- What is the Timeline When I File a Property Insurance Claim with My Carrier?
- What Is Bad Faith in Property Insurance Claims and How Do You Spot It?
- Navigating the Challenges of Dealing with Uncooperative Insurance Adjusters in Louisiana
- When Should Homeowners Get a Lawyer Involved in Their First-Party Property Insurance Claims?
Get your claim moving
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