(CNN) If you've ever been wrongfully denied health insurance coverage, a recent court decision should give you hope in fighting your insurer and holding them accountable.

That's the key takeaway, experts say, after a California Supreme Court decision in early January paved the way for the state to collect $91 million in fines from the UnitedHealthcare Group, the nation's largest insurance company.

"It's a clear win for consumers," said Ben Handel, a health care economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "This seems like a case where [UHC] was way over the line."

The decision is the latest twist in a decade-long fight between the California insurance commissioner's office and UHC. The office found more than 900,000 violations involving patient claims and other issues against UHC subsidiary PacifiCare around the time of their 2005 merger. It was those violations at the heart of the dispute.

That is the largest number of violations an insurer has ever been found to have committed in the state's history, according to the commissioner's office.