By AgencyEquity.com
Bad blood between a captive agency carrier and one of its former agents led to an insurance department investigation and a lawsuit against the carrier.
The agent received a North Carolina license in early 2017 and started work in the office of one of the carrier’s agents. The following year, she applied for and was accepted for an agency internship position. The understanding was that she would become an agent for the carrier when her internship ended in January 2019.
The trouble began in November 2018 when the carrier informed her that the agent she worked for and several of his employees were being audited. The carrier’s representative told her that she would be interviewed as part of the audit. In December and after her interview, she was told that the carrier had found no wrongdoing on her part. She was permitted to complete her internship.
This experience must have rattled her because she began looking for other employment opportunities. Later in December, some of the carrier’s agents confronted her about her employment search. The company placed her on administrative leave, then fired her the day after Christmas, telling her that she would not receive the agent position she had sought. She accepted a position the same day with a competitor.
The following April, the carrier wrote to the state Department of Insurance to inform the department that they had terminated an employee for cause. State law requires carriers to make such reports. Upon learning of the letter, the agent contacted the carrier and was told that she would probably be the subject of a department investigation. This news caused her to suffer from anxiety and other forms of emotional distress.
It took nearly two years, probably because of delays resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the department eventually notified her that she was under investigation for alleged violations of state law regarding the quoting and sale of insurance. She cooperated with the investigation and the department ultimately closed it with no action against her. She came to believe that the carrier had given false and/or misleading information to the department. She had lost business opportunities and suffered from anxiety and emotional stress.
She sued the carrier for claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress, blacklisting, abuse of process, and others. The court opinion did not state the amount of damages she sought. She amended her complaint in February 2024 and the carrier moved to have the case dismissed later that month.
In August 2024, a federal district court ruled in favor of the carrier. He agreed with the carrier that she filed the lawsuit after the period set by the applicable statutes of limitations had expired. The opinion did not state the date she filed the initial complaint, but the judge noted that the clock began ticking when the carrier wrote to the Insurance Department in April 2019. Since the period for taking legal action was three years after the date of the injury, she must have filed the suit after April 2022. Accordingly, the judge dismissed all but one claim for being late.
The judge also dismissed her claim of malicious prosecution, saying that she simply did not produce sufficient evidence that the carrier acted maliciously. The law required her to provide evidence of actual malice. Accordingly, he dismissed all her claims. There is no record of her pursuing an appeal.
The story implies that the carrier retaliated against her because she began looking for another job. However, a mere implication is not enough to win when a person accuses a company of targeting her for retribution. The fact that both a company and an Insurance Department investigation cleared her of wrongdoing suggests that she was targeted. The carrier certainly did not present a favorable image here, but that image was not enough for the agent’s lawsuit to succeed.
