Plaintiffs do not need to provide 
so-called “smoking gun” evidence of ill will to bring bad-faith claims against insurance carriers, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled in an issue of first impression for the court.

Ruling Sept. 28 in Rancosky v. Washington National Insurance, the high court adopted the two-pronged test used for establishing bad-faith claims that the state Superior Court outlined in the 1994 decision Terletsky v. Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance. As part of its decision, the Supreme Court rejected arguments from an insurance carrier that, as part of the requirements under that test, plaintiffs need to prove that a carrier was motivated by self-interest or ill-will.

“We hold that proof of an insurer's motive of self-interest or ill-will, while potentially probative of the second prong, is not a mandatory prerequisite to bad-faith recovery under Section 8371,” Justice Max Baer, who wrote the court's majority opinion, said. “An ill will level of culpability would limit recovery in any bad-faith claim to the most egregious instances only where the plaintiff uncovers some sort of 'smoking gun' evidence indicating personal animus towards the insured.”