Laches and Estoppel:

Everything You Need

to Know
Laches and estoppel refers to the denial of a
claim that hasn't been acted on in a timely
manner. • 3 min read

Laches and estoppel refers to the denial of a

claim that hasn't been acted on in a timely
manner. Called, estoppel by laches, some
courts will deny someone the right to make a
claim because they took too long or were
negligent. Think of a person who is in a car
accident but waits a year to file an insurance
claim. They may be denied coverage through
estoppel by laches.

What Is Estoppel?
Estoppel is a legal term that refers to a
person being barredFree
Request fromProposals
asserting their
rights or their ability to claim or deny a fact,
because of their failure to act in a case
identical to their current one, their actions,
previous statements, admissions, or conduct.
Estoppel by laches happens when the person
is barred from asserting their rights due to
their lack of timeliness. If the person waits
until the other party is hindered because of
their waiting, they are barred from making a
claim against the other party.

Other types of estoppel include:

Equitable estoppel.
Collateral estoppel.
Promissory estoppel.

What Is Laches?
Laches is another legal term that means
someone is basically out of time. If one party
wants to make a legal claim against another
party, they need to do so before the other
party is limited or prejudiced by the time that
has passed. There are a few different
elements to the rule of laches:

Claim knowledge.
Unreasonable delay in action.
Negligence.

When any of these elements took place and

therefore harmed the opponent's ability to
defend themselves or do right by the claim,
the doctrine of laches is enforced, and the
claim cannot go forward.

Certain types of legal claims will include a

statute of limitations that sets forth a specific
time period in which claims must be acted on
to be valid. Even without a statute of
limitations, however, most claims need to be
enacted within a reasonable amount of time
when they are known about. The best way to
avoid running into the doctrine of estoppel
by laches is to ask an experienced attorney
for help anytime you have a question about a
claim.

Types of Waivers and

Estoppel
When signing a waiver, the signee essentially
agrees to estoppel on their own. Waivers
give up the rights of a party intentionally. This
is also called waiver and estoppel. Many
companies have lawyers and other
professionals who write their contracts for
them and who understand these concepts
well, but it's also important for the
policyholders to understand what they're
signing.

Having a thorough understanding of waiver

and estoppel and laches and estoppel when
entering into a contract with any insurance
company could mean the difference between
having a claim paid or denied when you
need it most.

Here are some of the most common types of

waivers that come up in insurance policies:

Express waiver.
Implied waiver.
Waiver by silence.
Different than waiver.

Express Waiver
An express waiver might be written in a
contract or orally agreed to, but it is a
definite statement of giving up a right. If, for
example, an insurance company tells their
policyholder that they will not lapse their
policy due to missed payments, they are
expressly waiving their right to lapse the
policy under that circumstance.

Implied Waiver
An implied waiver isn't put down in words or
even said aloud but is implied through the
actions of the party that waives their rights.
For instance, if a policyholder pays their
premium after the official due date and the
insurance company receives and accepts it,
the company is implying the waiving of their
right to enforce the due date and lapse the
policy as a consequence.

Waiver by Silence
A waiver by silence happens when one party
doesn't speak when they should and
therefore waives a certain right. If a
policyholder notifies their insurance company
of a recovery from disability, but the
company continues paying benefits for the
disability, the company waives its right to
stop those payments because they didn't
speak when they learned of the change.

Different Than Waiver

A different than waiver comes into play when
one party is trying to treat another unfairly or
differently from the past. Say an insurance
company has always accepted late payments
without canceling policies, but they try to
cancel a certain policyholder's coverage due
to a late payment. The different than waiver
rule may be used to get the insurance
company to continue coverage because of
their past actions toward other policyholders.

If you need help with laches and estoppel,

you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's
marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the
top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers
on UpCounsel come from law schools such as
Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14
years of legal experience, including work with
or on behalf of companies like Google,
Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.

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