Insurance Bad Faith Pre-Trial Strategies: Demand Letters, Pleadings, Defenses, Damages, Bifurcation, and Experts
Developing Winning Pre-Trial Tactics for Policyholders and Insurers
A live 90-minute CLE video webinar with interactive Q&A
This CLE course will outline pre-trial strategies for both insurers and policyholders litigating bad faith claims. The program will focus on demand letters to insurers, drafting and answering bad faith complaints, proving and opposing damages, bifurcation, and using expert witnesses.
Outline
- Policyholder strategies
- Bad faith demand letters
- Bad faith pleading requirements
- Proving insurer breach of duties
- Calculating damages
- Using experts in bad faith cases
- Insurer strategies
- Responding to demand letters
- Bad faith defenses
- Change of venue and removal if jurisdiction unfavorable to insurance carriers
- Bifurcating coverage and bad faith issues
- Challenges to claims professional testimony
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- What facts regarding the insurer's actions should policyholders include in the complaint to survive a motion to dismiss?
- What industry experts are best suited for bad faith claims, and what are common challenges or objections to their testimony?
- What factors should insurers consider in deciding whether to move to bifurcate the coverage trial from the bad faith trial?
Faculty

Kevin V. Small
Counsel
Hunton Andrews Kurth
Mr. Small counsels clients on the recovery of insurance proceeds and on risk management and insurance strategy. He... | Read More
Mr. Small counsels clients on the recovery of insurance proceeds and on risk management and insurance strategy. He represents clients in complex coverage disputes involving claims under various types of policies, including first-party property, cyber, D&O, E&O, general liability, product liability, and transactional liability.
CloseEarly Discount (through 07/18/25)