Case Selection: Deciding Which Bad-Faith Matters to Take

Two files land on a plaintiff firm's intake desk the same week. Both are denied claims. Both clients are sympathetic. The firm takes one and passes on the other — based mostly on gut feel and the few insurers its attorneys have fought before. That decision will tie up years of attorney time and real money, and it was made with less information than almost any other choice the firm makes.

Intake is how a firm spends its capital

A contingency-fee firm has limited hours and limited cash to advance. Every case it accepts is a bet of both against an uncertain payout. A strong claim against an insurer that pays fairly is a good bet. The same claim against an insurer that fights everything to trial may not be — not because the client is wrong, but because getting paid will cost far more.

At intake, a firm usually knows the facts of the one claim in front of it and almost nothing about the company on the other side. How does that insurer behave across thousands of similar disputes? How does it compare to its peers? Is its financial condition getting better or worse? Those answers separate a good intake call from an expensive one.

Three signals that change the picture

Market-wide data lets a firm ask a second question at intake: not just "is this claim good?" but "what does this insurer tend to do?" Three aggregate signals carry most of the weight. None decides the case alone. Together, they turn a coin flip into a graded choice.

Conduct, compared to peers. How often an insurer generates the kind of regulated disputes that come before bad-faith suits is measurable across a market. An insurer well above its peer average is a different opponent than one at or below it.

Settlement benchmarks, in aggregate. Knowing the historical range of results for similar matters — by coverage type, region, and insurer posture — grounds expectations in data instead of instinct. Benchmarks describe the aggregate pattern, not any single case's result.

Financial health. A good claim against a weakening insurer carries different risk than the same claim against a well-funded one. Collectability and appetite for a long fight both track with financial condition.

Why verdict databases are not enough

Many firms already screen with verdict and settlement databases. Those tools are useful, but they only capture cases that left a visible record. Claims that resolved quietly, were denied and never filed, or settled small never appear — and those quiet resolutions often reveal exactly the conduct pattern a firm wants to see.

Verdict data also looks at only one side. It shows what similar claims returned, not how the insurer behaves: how it answers pre-suit demands, how hard it litigates, how its conduct has shifted over time. Those patterns live in the regulatory record. The two sources answer different questions and work best together.

From signals to a decision — responsibly

These signals combine into a read on the opponent, not a verdict on the case. Strong facts against a high-conduct, financially shaky insurer is a different proposition than the same facts against a clean, well-funded one. Neither is an automatic take or pass. But a firm that screens every prospect against the same market baseline improves the whole portfolio over time.

All DAIS intelligence is aggregate and anonymized. It describes institutional conduct across the market — never individual claimants or claims. It is business intelligence, not legal advice, and it does not tell any firm to accept or decline a specific matter. See the Methodology page for the approach.

The premium layer

The full composite — conduct indexed to the market, settlement benchmarks, and financial-health posture across multiple lines and states — is what DAIS's Carrier Intelligence product delivers to Founding Members, built for one question: where a plaintiff firm should point its capital.