Prevailing Rates cases
These are consumer class actions we brought on behalf of insureds against several insurance companies who allegedly are underpaying claims for repair work at body shops. The lawsuits allege that the insurers are improperly capping the hourly labor rate they are willing to pay the body shops, leaving the policyholders to pay the difference. The law requires insurers to pay no less than the “prevailing rate” based upon surveys filed with the Insurance Commissioner. The lawsuits allege that the insurers have not filed such surveys or are improperly skewing their surveys toward hourly labor rates which are lower than the true prevailing rate. The lawsuits seek to require the insurance companies to reimburse their California insureds for the amounts they have paid or become indebted to pay a body repair shop because the insurers refused to pay the prevailing hourly rate.
