Bad faith litigation springs from claims handling gone awry. “Institutional bad faith” claims allege that the policies and practices of the insurer mandated, caused or contributed to the improper conduct of the insurer’s claims personnel. Essentially, institutional bad faith claims try the insurer, instead of, or in addition to, the claim handling. This article is intended to serve as a primer for the discovery process in an institutional bad faith action, and discusses what types of discovery may be propounded by the plaintiffs; what types of objections may be made by the insurer; what approaches courts have implemented to resolve the disputes; and, what types of strategies may be successful for the parties.

The authors are members of the Insurance Practice Group of Carlton Fields, P.A. Jeffrey Michael Cohen is a shareholder in the Miami, Fla., office. He serves as Co-Chair of the Bad Faith Subcommittee of the ABA Litigation Section of ICLC. Kathryn H. Christian and Katie Heckert are associates in Carlton Fields' Tampa, Fla., office.

All underscoring in this article is supplied unless otherwise noted.