House members in the Capitol on Friday attached a proposal to resurrect so-called “one-way attorney fees” to a Senate bill on phosphate mining. (AP Photo/Phil Sears)

By Ron Hurtibise | rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel
PUBLISHED: April 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM EDT

In an effort to keep alive their bid to resurrect the availability of so-called “one-way attorneys fees” in lawsuits against insurers, the Florida House adopted a bill that added their proposal to an unrelated Senate bill on Friday.

But if the House had hoped the amended bill would slip by the Senate, proponents of reforms that reduced insurers’ legal costs are urging senators to reject it when it comes back to them in the coming days.

“I hope the Senate will do the right thing and be the adults in the room,” said Stacey Giulianti, chief legal officer at Boca Raton-based Florida Peninsula Insurance.

The effort to restore the right of plaintiffs to claim attorneys fees in lawsuits against insurers has overshadowed dozens of other insurance-related bills introduced for the session, leaving only a handful with minor impacts poised for enactment.

Until the late bid emerged, the Senate seemed content to ignore bills that would require insurers to once again pay fees incurred by policyholders who sue them.

In arguing for the reforms three years ago, insurers said that the industry had become unprofitable due to an avalanche of frivolous lawsuits filed under a century-old Florida law. That law required insurers to pay legal fees if they agreed to settle litigation by paying as little as $1 over their original settlement offer. However, insurance customers were held harmless if they sued their insurers and lost.

The reforms placed Florida’s legal system on equal footing with most of the country, insurers said. Plaintiffs who sue are now required to pay attorneys out of their own pockets or a percentage of what they win.

But attorneys say that leaves plaintiffs unable to challenge denials or underpayments of small claims because attorneys can’t make enough money to justify taking their cases.

Knowing that emboldens insurers to treat policyholders unfairly, attorneys say.

A bill introduced prior to the current Legislative session by state Rep. Hillary Cassel, a Broward County Democrat-turned-Republican who is also a plaintiffs attorney, was approved by two House committees but still awaited a hearing by a third committee. Typically, bills must pass three committee hearings in both the House and Senate.

But the Senate — potentially responding to warnings from insurance industry leaders, the state’s insurance commissioner and Gov. Ron DeSantis — failed to schedule it for a single committee hearing.

The Senate also ignored a bill by its former president, Don Gaetz, that would also have empowered judges to award attorney fees to plaintiffs who prevail in their lawsuits.

On Wednesday, House member Berny Jacques attached language from the Cassel bill to an unrelated bill approved by the Senate clarifying that certain levels of radiation must be recorded before lawsuits could be brought against owners of former phosphate mines.

Rather than “one-way attorney fees,” supporters insist that the bill should actually be called a “prevailing party” or “loser pays” measure. It would require insurers to pay plaintiffs’ attorney fees if a court awards them more than an amount offered by insurers, but plaintiffs would be required to pay insurers’ fees if a court awards them less than the insurer proposed.

During debate over the bill on Friday, Rep. Michael Gottlieb, who represents part of Broward County, predicted the prevailing party provision would “discourage litigation because you’re not going to want to, number one, prolong litigation, and number two, get involved in litigation that you’re going to lose.”

Rep. Tyler Sirois, from Brevard County, said the bill would reinstate “balance.” He added, “We made it too easy for insurers to delay, deny and underpay claims — making it harder for honest Floridians, whether they’re carrying a hammer or a calculator, to fight back.”

During the debate, no member of the House spoke against the amended bill and it was adopted by a vote of 80-20.

As part of the back-and-forth that must occur to get a unified bill approved by the entire Legislature, the amended bill now goes back to the Senate, which could vote on the House’s version, remove or change the amendment, or just let it die.

Jacque’s filing of the amendment on Wednesday set off a flurry of activity by industry supporters who again warned that passage would undermine progress tracked since the reforms were enacted, drive up litigation and force insurers to increase premiums.

It also prompted Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky to send an email warning Peter Cuderman, Gov. DeSantis’ director of legislative and intergovernmental affairs, that the bill could dismantle “the hard-won progress” achieved by the 2022-2023 reforms.

That progress, Yaworsky wrote, includes declining reinsurance costs for insurers, 65 rate filings that were either reduced or included no increases, introduction of 12 new insurers into Florida’s market, and a 23% decrease in lawsuit filings year over year.

Potential impact of the House’s bill, he warned, included increases in lawsuits, insurer costs, reinsurance rates, private investment, and the population of state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the insurer of last resort.

After the vote, the pro-industry Florida Chamber released a statement saying it would continue fighting to stop the bill, which also removes restrictions on medical claims by patients, from becoming law.

“Going backwards is the wrong move for Florida,” the statement said. “We should allow these reforms to continue to work, not re-allow scamsters to artificially drive up medical costs to inflate verdicts and incentivize litigation over small dollar amounts with the promise of attorneys’ fees for the people on the billboards.”

Brian Murphy, who owns a Brightway insurance agency franchise in Palm Beach Gardens, said after the hearing that he favored keeping the reforms as they are. If positive trends continue, he said, “it’s a sign that the state’s efforts to revitalize the insurance landscape are working.”

Dulce Suarez-Resnick, an insurance agent based in Miami, said supporters predicted reforms wouldn’t be felt for three years.

“We are two years in and I’ve already seen a lot of impact,” she said. “The Legislature needs to be patient. We have one more year to go.”

William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, said the House proposal would bring back “one-way attorney fees.”

“Unless an insurer gets a zero verdict, they’re going to end up paying attorneys fees,” he said.

Also troublesome, Large said, is a provision of the bill that would allow attorney fees to be awarded if a plaintiff wins a “declaratory judgment,” which is simply a declaration by the court that an insurer is responsible for paying a claim. It’s “going to create an incentive for attorneys to litigate declaratory judgment actions to generate fees,” Large said.

Only a few insurance bills have passed the House and Senate.

The handful of bills headed to the governor’s desk after approval by both chambers include:

— SB 114 / HB 1097 — Transfers hurricane loss projection modeling from Florida International University to Florida State University.

— SB 1076 / HB 715 — Expands roofing contractors’ scope of work to include evaluation and enhancement of roof-to-wall connections; narrows cancellation window for contracts signed after emergencies.

— SB 176 / HB 1041 — Limits property tax increases for homes elevated to prevent flood damage if voters approve constitutional amendment in November 2026.

— SB 948 / HB 1015 — Requires landlords to provide flood risk information to tenants before signing leases. Gives tenants 30 days after a flood to terminate a lease if the disclosures are not provided and the tenant suffers flood damage.

Bills with little chance of enactment

Meanwhile, a long list of bills received no hearings in committee, made it through fewer than the required number of committee stops, or were ignored by one or the other chamber.

Giulianti doesn’t want to see any of them enacted this year. “It’s best for the Legislature to continue to let all the (2022 and 2023) changes work their way through the system through all of the insurance renewal cycles, and then decide next year if anything needs tweaking,” he said.

Property insurance bills left on the table would have allowed policyholders to:

— Hold the owners of fallen trees responsible for damage to their properties.

— Protect personal information entered into Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection forms.

— Access rate transparency reports or see rating examples for their counties in filings to the Office of Insurance Regulation.

— Learn how their premiums are being distributed among subsidiaries, captive vendors, management companies and reinsurers.

— Require that their insurer pay specific fees for services provided by affiliates.

— Tap into a $500 million emergency trust fund if they are having trouble paying their insurance bill.

— Hold their surplus lines insurer responsible to pay up to the full amount of the insured value set in their policy.

— Require that their insurer participate in mandatory dispute resolution hearings prior to litigating.

— If they are a Citizens customer located outside of a FEMA flood zone, get out of the new requirement to hold flood insurance.

— Weigh advice from an Insurance Solutions Advisory Council or have access to a consumers guide to homeowner insurance.

— Be protected from cancellation while trying to repair damage from floods or hurricanes.

— Seek reimbursement for wind and flood damage mitigation projects through the My Safe Florida Home program.

Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071 or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.