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Aurora, Colorado. CGH Injury Lawyers holds insurance companies accountable for bad faith across Aurora.

IT'S MORE THAN MONEY.

Aurora Bad Faith Insurance Lawyers Holding Insurers Accountable

An insurance policy is a promise: pay the premium, and the company pays a covered claim without unreasonable delay or excuse. When an insurer breaks that promise, Colorado law gives Aurora policyholders a real path to hold it accountable, whether the dispute involves a car accident claim, a homeowners claim, or a health or disability benefit.

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Aurora, Arapahoe County

Why policyholders call us

CGH Injury Lawyers represents Aurora residents against insurers that deny, delay, or underpay claims without a reasonable basis. Your first conversation with us is free, and we do not get paid unless we win.

  • 5.0-star Google rating
  • ABOTA trial advocate on the team
  • Trial-ready, not settlement-shy
  • No fee unless we win
5-star rated on Google ABOTA trial advocate on the team Trial lawyers, not a settlement mill 8 attorneys, bilingual EN / ES
  • Aurora is one of Colorado's largest and most diverse cities, and the households we hear from reflect that: young families, longtime homeowners, renters, first-generation Coloradans. What they have in common is a claim their own insurer isn't handling fairly. We built this firm on the idea that a case is never just a claim number. Whatever your situation looks like, we give you a straight answer about where things actually stand, and a team willing to try the case if that's what it takes to get it paid.

Tell us what happened. Call (303) 209-9395.

Common law vs. statute

Common law vs. statute: two ways Colorado lets you hold an insurer accountable

Colorado gives policyholders two separate legal paths against an insurer that mishandles a claim. Depending on your facts, your Aurora claim may support one or both.

Track 1: Common-law bad faith

  • Colorado courts have long held that an insurer owes its policyholder a duty of good faith and fair dealing.
  • Under the standard the Colorado Supreme Court set out in Travelers Insurance Co. v.
  • Savio, a first-party bad faith claim requires showing the insurer's conduct was unreasonable under the circumstances, and that the insurer either knew the conduct was unreasonable or recklessly disregarded that fact.
  • Insurers may dispute claims that are genuinely "fairly debatable," so the real question is usually whether the insurer had a real basis for its decision, not simply whether that decision turned out to be wrong.

Track 2: Statutory bad faith

  • Colorado also enacted a specific statute targeting unreasonable claim handling.
  • Under C.R.S. § 10-3-1115, an insurer may not unreasonably delay or deny payment of a covered benefit owed to a first-party claimant, meaning a delay or denial with no reasonable basis.
  • If it does, C.R.S. § 10-3-1116 lets you sue in district court for two times the covered benefit, plus your reasonable attorney fees and court costs.
  • This statute applies to policies issued, offered, or renewed in Colorado on or after August 5, 2008, and does not cover workers' compensation, title insurance, or life insurance claims.
Local Knowledge

Aurora courts. Aurora trauma care. The claims that turn into bad faith.

Courthouse

Arapahoe County District Court

Aurora sits mostly in Arapahoe County, with smaller portions reaching into Adams and Douglas counties. Under Colorado’s venue rule (C.R.C.P. 98), a lawsuit against an insurer is generally proper in the county where the insurer resides or does business, or, in some cases, in the county where the policyholder resides if the insurer can also be served there. For most Aurora policyholders, that points to Arapahoe County District Court, part of Colorado’s 18th Judicial District (Arapahoe County’s own single-county district as of January 2025), at the Arapahoe County Justice Center, 7325 S. Potomac St., Centennial, though the correct venue depends on the specific facts.

Trauma Care

UCHealth on the Anschutz campus

Aurora is home to the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus, a Level I Trauma Center, the highest level of trauma designation under Colorado’s system, and the only facility in the state paired on-site with an American Burn Association-verified burn center. A hospital’s trauma-center designation reflects the facility’s own capabilities, not the severity of any individual patient’s injuries, but the detailed imaging, evaluation, and treatment records generated at a Level I center become part of the documentation we use to build your claim.

Where It Starts

How these claims begin

A lot of the calls we get from Aurora follow the same arc: something happens, a crash, a fire, a serious diagnosis, the claim gets filed properly, and then the insurer just stops moving. Weeks turn into months. Eventually a number comes back that doesn’t match the coverage you paid for. If that’s roughly where you are, it’s worth talking it through before you sign anything or accept whatever’s on the table.

Why CGH

Why Aurora policyholders choose CGH Injury Lawyers

The Statute

Colorado's bad faith statute

C.R.S. §§ 10-3-1115 and 10-3-1116 give Colorado policyholders a specific, provable tool against unreasonable claim handling, and proving an insurer’s delay or denial had no reasonable basis is a core part of what we do.

Real Denver Office

Not a call center.

CGH Injury Lawyers isn’t a lead-generation call center. We work from a real office at 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201, Denver, and Aurora clients reach us by phone, online, or in person, whichever works for you.

The Standard

The bar insurers must clear

Travelers v. Savio set the bar insurers have to clear: conduct that’s unreasonable, done knowingly or recklessly. We don’t let a claim sit indefinitely behind “still under review.”

Trial-Ready

ABOTA member, 25+ cases tried

Managing Partner Kevin Cheney is an ABOTA member with more than 25 cases tried, and as Colorado trial lawyers, our attorneys prepare every case to be tried, not just settled.

Bilingual

Se habla español.

English and Spanish consultations, with a Spanish-speaking associate on the team. Se habla español.

No Win, No Fee

Nothing unless we win.

The first consultation costs nothing, and you owe us nothing unless we actually win your case.

How we handle your case

How we build an Aurora bad faith case

  1. We start with your policy and your file

    Free of charge, we go through the coverage, the correspondence, and the timeline to see where things actually stand.

  2. We map it to the law

    Common-law bad faith, statutory bad faith under C.R.S. § 10-3-1116, or both, depending on what your facts support.

  3. We send a demand

    A formal letter from a trial-ready firm is frequently enough on its own to unstick an Aurora claim that's been sitting.

  4. If that doesn't move it, we dig in

    Claims-file materials, documentation, and, where it helps, outside expert input, all aimed at proving the delay or denial had no reasonable basis.

  5. We file where the case belongs

    Under Colorado's venue rules, that's often Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, though we confirm the correct venue against your specific facts before filing.

  6. We pursue everything the law allows,

    the underlying benefit, statutory damages, and attorney fees where applicable.

Compensation

What can you recover in an Aurora bad faith case?

Statutory recovery (C.R.S. § 10-3-1116)

  • An unreasonably delayed or denied covered benefit can support a district court claim for two times that benefit amount, plus reasonable attorney fees and court costs.

Common-law recovery

  • A successful common-law claim can reach further, the underlying benefit itself, damages tied to the harm the insurer's conduct caused beyond the policy limits, and in some cases additional damages depending on how the insurer behaved.
  • None of this is a fixed number.
  • Reputable attorneys do not quote averages, and we won't quote you one before we've actually looked at your situation.
Insurer defenses

Defenses Aurora insurers raise, and how we answer them

Few insurers ever say the words "bad faith" out loud. What they say instead usually falls into one of a few familiar patterns:

  1. "The claim was fairly debatable"

    Whether a claim was genuinely debatable is evidence bearing on whether the insurer's conduct was unreasonable. It is not, by itself, a complete defense. Our job is to show the dispute was manufactured, not genuine.

  2. "We were still investigating"

    There's a real difference between a diligent review and an investigation that drags on for months with nothing to show for it. The statute targets the second kind.

  3. "You didn't provide enough documentation"

    Sometimes that's accurate. Sometimes the goalposts keep moving so the insurer always has an excuse to wait longer. We keep our own record of every request and every response, so the timeline speaks for itself.

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Grace Macaluso, 5-star Google review
Deadlines and next steps

Protect your Aurora bad faith claim while you still can

You generally have two years to bring a bad faith claim in Colorado, common-law or statutory, and the clock starts when you knew or reasonably should have known the delay or denial was unreasonable, not necessarily the date of the original claim. The Colorado Supreme Court confirmed the two-year period applies to statutory bad faith claims in Rooftop Restoration, Inc. v. American Family Mutual Insurance Co. That's the general rule, not a guarantee for every fact pattern, since accrual and any tolling can shift it, so it deserves an actual review rather than a calculation off a calendar. Two years sounds like a lot until you're in the middle of an active, ongoing dispute with the same insurer. Earlier review generally means more options.

Questions

Aurora insurance bad faith, frequently asked questions

What counts as insurance bad faith in Colorado?

In short, an insurer denying, delaying, or underpaying a covered claim without a reasonable basis. That covers a range of behavior: ignoring evidence that supports the claim, running out the clock on an investigation with no real justification, or offering a number well below what the claim is actually worth.

How much can I recover for a bad faith claim in Aurora?

There's no set figure. The statute allows two times the covered benefit plus attorney fees and costs; a common-law claim can add other categories of damages. We'd need to see your policy and your facts before giving you anything more specific than that.

What is the difference between common-law and statutory bad faith?

Common-law bad faith comes out of decades of Colorado appellate decisions and turns on whether the insurer's conduct was unreasonable and either knowing or reckless. Statutory bad faith is narrower and more mechanical: C.R.S. §§ 10-3-1115 and 10-3-1116 set out a specific claim with its own damages formula. It's common for one set of facts to support both.

Does bad faith come up in Aurora uninsured or underinsured motorist claims?

Regularly. A UM/UIM claim puts you in the position of asking your own insurer to pay for a loss someone else caused, and some insurers push back harder on that than they would on a claim against a stranger's policy.

My insurer is just slow. Is delay alone enough for a bad faith claim?

It depends on how unreasonable the delay is given the circumstances. Waiting a few weeks for legitimate paperwork is not the same thing as months of silence with no real explanation. We look at the whole timeline before saying which one you're dealing with.

Where is an Aurora bad faith lawsuit filed?

It depends on Colorado's venue rules and the specific facts, particularly where the insurer does business and where you live and are served. Many Aurora cases end up in Arapahoe County District Court at the Arapahoe County Justice Center in Centennial, though a case touching the Adams or Douglas County portions of Aurora can belong somewhere else. We work that out as part of taking on your case.

Keep Reading

Related pages

Aurora

It's More Than Money.

Your insurer broke its promise. We hold it to account.

Tell us what happened. Call (303) 209-9395.

Call (303) 209-9395 Get my free bad-faith case review

Prefer to read first? See how Colorado bad faith law works.

CGH Injury Lawyers · 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201, Denver, CO 80205

Cheney Galluzzi & Howard, LLC, d/b/a CGH Injury Lawyers. Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case turns on its own facts, injuries, and available insurance coverage. This site is for general information and is not legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship.