"Delay, Deny, Defend" by Jay M. Feinman

God, this book is depressing. The author summarizes tons of books documenting the transition of insurance companies in the United States from policyholders to shareholders. Essentially, insurance companies turned from public goods to profit-seeking industry giants. Unfortunately, one of the most obvious and sure ways for an insurance company to make money is to pay less to the insured parties that have valid claims. Another way is to delay the payments so that insurance companies can collect the interest on the unpaid, invested difference.

Hence, they came up with delay (ask for more evidence, be unresponsive, wait until the last moment to respond), deny (in whole or in part to pay less money for legitimate claims) and then defend (aggressively in court even if it would cost more to defend than to settle).

This practice benefits shareholders (and executives) but directly takes money away from vulnerable policyholders. The worst part is that this will probably never change! The authors suggest that you inform the insurance company of your knowledge of delay, deny, defend, and cooperate with them if you ever have a claim. Basically, Jay says that the system won't change, and you need to take care of your case as an exception rather than the rule.