Suing insurers would become easier under bill that passes first legislative hurdle

March 14, 2025/in Insurance Newsnet

Ron Hurtibise, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
South Florida Sun Sentinel – March 14, 2025

Policyholders would find it easier to sue their insurance companies under a bill that passed its first hurdle in the Florida Legislature on Thursday.

But insurers warned that the bill would trigger the return of excessive lawsuits driven by so-called “one-way attorney fees” and undo progress that the insurance marketplace has achieved since reforms were enacted in 2022 and 2023.

Rep. Hillary Cassel, a Broward County-based attorney who represents policyholders in insurance disputes, sponsored the bill that she said would “strike a balanced approach” by awarding attorney fees to the prevailing party in lawsuits.

The bill would not lead to excessive litigation, she said, because unlike before the reforms, policyholders would no longer be held harmless if they sue their insurer and lose, she said.

The bill, Cassel said, “creates a prevailing party standard, otherwise known as ‘loser pays,’ for awarding reasonable attorney’s fees by a judge after a judgment is obtained in an insurance contract dispute.”

The bill cleared the House Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee by a 16-1 vote. Only Rep. Susan Plasencia, a Central Florida Republican, voted against it.

An analysis posted on the House website explained that the bill would create a “two-way” attorney fee structure by awarding legal fees to the prevailing party in disputes. Insurers would be required to pay policyholders’ fees if a policyholder obtains a judgment exceeding an insurer’s “highest written good faith settlement offer.” The insurer would collect if a policyholder challenges that offer but is denied a greater sum, according to the analysis.

Prior to the reforms of 2022 and 2023, Florida law required insurers to pay policyholders if insurers ended up paying any amount over their original offer. Policyholders, meanwhile, were not required to pay insurers’ fees if they challenged and lost.

The arrangement morphed into a cottage industry for a small number of law firms that solicited plaintiffs door to door and bombarded insurers with litigation, insurers have long contended.

Plaintiffs attorneys argue that repeal of the one-way attorney fee statute required dissatisfied policyholders to pay attorneys out of their own pockets or agree to forfeit a quarter of any award. It also discouraged attorneys from representing policyholders in low-dollar claims that would not pay enough to justify the required effort, attorneys have said.

Supporters of the bill who attended the hearing included the Florida Medical Association, which represents physicians, the Merlin Law Group, a plaintiffs firm, and the Florida Justice Association, a trade and lobbying group for plaintiffs attorneys.

Opponents of the bill at the hearing included insurance industry lobbying groups, including the Association of Professional Insurance Agents, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies and the Florida Justice Reform Institute.

Katelyn Ferry, an insurance defense attorney and lobbyist for the Florida Justice Reform Institute, argued that the reforms are working and should be given more time. A provision of the reforms requiring plaintiffs to file notices that they intend to sue is leading insurers to settle claims before they proceed to litigation, Ferry said.

“Make no mistake: If this bill passes, it’ll eradicate Florida’s insurance market and devastate the citizens,” she said. “The positive changes brought about from the 2022 legislation will be erased. Carriers will begin leaving the state of Florida and we’ll face carrier insolvency. Homeowners will see spikes in their insurance premiums, which they cannot afford.”

Even if the bill is enacted, it remains to be seen whether it will survive a veto by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

During his State of the State address last week, DeSantis praised the Legislature for enacting “historic reforms” that have reduced the rate of increase of insurance premiums and encouraged 11 new insurance companies to enter the Florida market.

A few of the House members who supported Cassel’s bill said they were motivated in part by a Tampa Bay Times news article in February that stated insurers in a study reported losing $432 million between 2017 and 2019. Meanwhile, the study indicated that with more than 50 companies included, affiliates made about $14 billion in net income, said the Times report, which also was published by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Lori Augustyniak, president of the Professional Insurance Agents of Florida and a partner at the Bradenton-based Horizon Insurance agency, said in an essay published this week that the report was “misleading, incorrect and flawed.”

“Insurers don’t ‘hide’ money — they allocate capital to affiliates for reinsurance, operational efficiency, and regulatory compliance,” Augustyniak wrote. “This is an industry-standard practice monitored by state regulators to ensure financial stability and protect policyholders.”

But Rep. Ashley Gantt, a Miami-Dade County Democrat, likened the report to a “Scooby-Doo” episode that reveals that insurance companies, and not plaintiffs attorneys, were the actual villains of Florida’s insurance crisis.

“It’s insulting,” Gantt said. “This bill provides the justice that our constituents actually need.”

An investigation into claims in the Times story was scheduled Friday before the House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee in Tallahassee.

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.

Suing insurers would become easier under bill that passes first legislative hurdle

Does Car Insurance in No-Fault States Cost More? | Insurify

February 27, 2025/in Insurance Newsnet

Staff Writer – Delaware Business Daily

February 27, 2025

Lawmakers in the 1970s designed no-fault insurance laws to lower car insurance premiums by reducing the number of expensive lawsuits to decide fault. But that hasn’t exactly worked, and consumers are paying for it.

No-fault systems suffer from patchy insurance laws and low “tort” thresholds, which describe how costly or severe an injury has to be before a driver can sue, said Insurify Carrier Relationships Manager Daniel Lucas. Some medical providers and personal injury attorneys have learned how to game the system, leading to lawsuits and fraud that increase costs to insurers, according to the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I).

While no-fault laws aren’t the only factor contributing to high car insurance rates, they appear to be largely failing to protect drivers from expensive lawsuits and climbing rates.

What does ‘no-fault’ really mean?

Most states have at-fault auto insurance laws, meaning insurers pay out injury claims based on who causes an accident. In no-fault states, all drivers have to carry personal injury protection (PIP) coverage and file their injury claims with their own insurance company, no matter who’s at fault in a crash.

For example:

In an at-fault state, if Driver A clearly causes an accident that injures Driver B, Driver A’s insurance company pays to cover related medical expenses.In a no-fault state, if Driver A clearly causes an accident that injures Driver B, Driver B would file a bodily injury claim with their own car insurance company. PIP would cover medical and related expenses up to the coverage limit.

“No-fault” only applies to bodily injury claims. Insurers will likely work to determine fault for vehicle and other property damage. And, unlike the term “no-fault” suggests, fault in a personal injury claim could still matter in no-fault states.

No-fault states have legal thresholds for injury severity and cost. If a claim surpasses the threshold, the insurance company and court will work to determine fault as part of a lawsuit.

Some at-fault states require PIP, and others allow drivers to add PIP as an additional coverage. Three states have choice no-fault systems, where drivers choose a no-fault or traditional auto insurance policy, though all require PIP.

Comparing no-fault to at-fault systems

Proponents say no-fault systems can streamline the claims process because an injured driver isn’t waiting on an insurance company or court to determine fault before they can get their medical costs paid. PIP is a “first-party” coverage, meaning it only covers the policyholder and their passengers. No-fault states limit whether drivers can sue for damages based on “verbal” or “monetary” thresholds.

For example, Florida requires $10,000 of PIP and has a verbal threshold. In this case, a verbal threshold would mean an injured person may recover damages for pain and suffering if the accident causes significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, permanent injury, significant scarring or disfigurement, or death.

“Because PIP is a first-party coverage, the insured is able to use this coverage immediately following a loss and have guaranteed payment up to the limits,” said Lucas. “In an at-fault state, PIP is not mandatory, and the claimant can seek medical to be paid by the at-fault party. This gets significantly more messy given that liability could be disputed, or at least take time to investigate and determine. Meanwhile, the injured party may not be getting treatment.”

At-fault states, on the other hand, have no restrictions on lawsuits and no threshold. The injured persons can sue the at-fault driver for out-of-pocket costs as well as pain and suffering.

How medical providers and attorneys adapted

While no-fault laws aimed to prevent excessive fault litigation, the original laws — written mostly in the 1970s — aren’t working that way anymore.

“Decades later, the medical systems and plaintiff attorneys have adapted to operating successfully in both at-fault and no-fault states to largely negate the intended benefits,” Triple-I Director of Media Relations Scott Holeman told Insurify.

Lucas said it comes down to states’ “antiquated” PIP minimum limits and too-low legal thresholds.

“The state minimum limit is only $2,000 in Virginia, and you can’t walk into an emergency room for $2,000 these days,” he said. “With the rising cost of healthcare, limits are most likely exhausted very early on when there is a real injury from a covered loss.”

Medical providers know the system, Lucas said, and may collude with attorneys to charge higher rates for treatment.

“In some states, attorneys can direct care, meaning an injured person does not need a referral from their doctor or insurance to obtain treatment, and the attorney will direct the claimant to seek treatment at a specific facility with a specific doctor that the attorney has already negotiated rates with,” he said. “If you are in a tort state, and a threshold needs to be breached, the attorney and their doctor will surely direct treatment above that threshold to build up the injury claim.”

What’s next: No more taking advantage of the system

Triple-I coined the term “legal system abuse” to describe how trial attorneys are “gaming the system at the expense of consumers,” driving up costs. No-fault and at-fault states are both vulnerable to legal system abuse. It’s particularly affecting Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, according to Triple-I.

The good news is that reform works.

“Florida’s 2022/23 legislative reforms are a powerful example of how changing the laws can materially reduce [legal system abuse] to help improve both the affordability and availability of insurance,” Holeman said.

Florida prohibited the assignment of vehicle glass benefits in 2023, which prevents drivers from assigning their auto claims rights to repair shops. Lawsuits dropped substantially: courts saw about 83% fewer auto glass lawsuits in 2024 than in 2023, according to the Florida Justice Reform Institute.

Legal system abuse is also affecting New York. In 2024, Allstate sued multiple medical clinics for allegedly overbilling treatment for car accident victims. Rep. Ken Blankenbush introduced legislation to the New York State Assembly in January to reduce insurance fraud, improve medical treatment standards, and lower premiums.

Does Car Insurance in No-Fault States Cost More? | Insurify

Property insurance bill would repeal 2022 reforms that stabilized the market, insurers say

February 18, 2025/in Insurance Newsnet

Property insurance bill would repeal 2022 reforms that stabilized the market, insurers say

February 15, 2025
Ron Hurtibise, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

A political titan has filed a provocative bill he says will reduce insurance costs in Florida — and the insurance industry doesn’t like his proposals.

One provision would roll back recent restrictions on fees that attorneys can collect when they sue insurers. Another provision would require insurers to publicly disclose their companies’ subsidiaries and affiliates and all of the ways their executives benefit from them.

The proposals are in similar bills filed in the state House and Senate this week. The House bill was filed by Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola.

The Senate bill was filed by Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, a longtime heavyweight in Florida politics and father of former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Don Gaetz was reelected to the state Senate last fall after an eight-year absence. Last year, he campaigned on promises to fix an insurance system that has continued to raise costs for homeowners while saving significant money avoiding legal costs.

“Floridians pay far more for property insurance than anyone anywhere else in the nation,” the two lawmakers were quoted in a news release as saying. “Admittedly, Florida is a high-risk market, but we believe there are steps the Legislature can take to improve how rates are set and how individual claims can be processed faster and fairer.”

The release quoted Gaetz blaming high insurance prices for the slowing pace of new residents coming to Florida.

“High insurance costs make the Free State of Florida into the Unaffordable State of Florida for many seniors on fixed incomes trying to stay in their homes, young families including military families trying to buy their first homes, and businesses of every size,” Gaetz was quoted as saying.

Gaetz ran on fixing insurance

In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Gaetz said he came out of retirement and ran for Senate last year because he had heard from Northwest Florida residents going through “serious problems” caused by “bad actors in the insurance industry.”

Despite Gaetz’s stature and name recognition, the bills’ proposals will elicit pushback among members of the House and Senate who — assuming the bills are taken up by committees — will contend that the current set of reforms enacted between 2021 and 2023 are working as intended.

“We cannot support these bills,” said Michael Carlson, president and CEO of the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida, which represents national insurance carriers and their subsidiaries.

Stacey Giulianti, chief legal officer for Boca Raton-based Florida Peninsula Insurance, said the reforms enacted from 2021 to 2023 are working and should be left as is.

“My take is that it’s not necessary, at least from the attorney fee perspective,” Giulianti said. “There are still plenty of lawyers taking cases. In fact, we still get about 100 lawsuits per month. Moreover, to go back to the old days where we paid 70% of the monies to attorneys, which was basically a cottage industry, seems completely unnecessary now that the market is stabilizing and capacity is up.”

Insurers contended that prior to the reforms, a limited but prolific group of plaintiffs attorneys figured out how to profit from a century-old Florida law that held insurance customers harmless if they sued their insurers in claims disputes and lost, but paid 100% of their legal fees if the insurer agreed to pay as little as a $1 more than their original settlement offer.

That law, called the “one-way insurance fee statute,” made way for an avalanche of frivolous lawsuits, according to insurers, that attorneys could file without exposing themselves to the possibility that they or their clients might be stuck paying insurers’ fees.

Now, a policyholder who wants to sue an insurer has to pay an attorney upfront or guarantee a percentage of any award. Attorneys who make their livings taking cases on contingency — without requiring upfront payment — are turning away cases over small damage amounts that they once eagerly accepted.

The bills would create a framework for reprising payments to plaintiffs’ attorneys. They would get 100% of their fees if an insurer agrees to settle for at least 80% more than the policyholder demands.

If the judgment falls within 20% and 80% of the demand, the plaintiff would collect an equal percentage of their attorney’s fees.

Only if the award is less than 20% would insurers be required to pay none of the plaintiff’s attorney fees.

The language also enables full recovery of attorneys fees by plaintiffs if insurers fail to comply with timelines for responding to claims or participating in mediation, if the plaintiff’s demand “is deemed reasonable by the court,” or if a court finds evidence of bad faith or abuse of the litigative process.

Those provisions, said William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, amounts to “inserting the one-way attorneys fee provision back into law.”

While the reforms required plaintiffs to risk losing to the insurance company and paying its legal fees, the bill would again leave policyholders harmless whether they win or lose.

Gaetz acknowledges that, but counters, “This bill is going after bad actors in the insurance industry who don’t respond in a reasonable, fair and prompt fashion to legitimate claims.”

He points to the experience of a Panama City mother of two disabled sons who he had known. They lost their home in Hurricane Michael in 2018 and for more than a year was “ping-ponged back and forth between adjusters and lawyers” before her insurance company offered her 40 cents for every dollar of damage, which would have left her unable to rebuild her home, Gaetz said.

Ultimately, “she was so grateful to get 85 cents on the dollar” to settle her claim, he said.

Bill would require disclosure of subsidiaries

Another proposal in the bills would require the state to create reports disclosing to the public information that insurers currently label as trade secrets.

One would list all of an insurers’ subsidiaries, management companies, captive vendors and reinsurers that they have ownership stakes in and share common officers or directors. The report would detail the financial relationships between the entities.

Another report would detail compensation of each executive officer, including salaries, benefits, stock options, bonuses, stock buybacks and other taxable payments, along with profits and losses of each entity and highlight any compensation exceeding the industry average. It would also be required to explain effects of the compensation on insurers’ rate change requests.

Gaetz says the information would have to be used in rate setting, which he says isn’t occurring now.

He says he’s aware of insurers who move funds to management companies and consultants — “basically captive and owned vendors” — so they can appear to have much lower capital and profit levels when filing for rate increases.

“So if we find there’s excessive compensation with stock options and bonuses and perks and salaries, or if we find that the insurance company is sliding money off of their books and into other subsidiaries … we need to have an honest set of books that tells us where the premium dollars came from and how the premium dollars are used.”

But Paul Handerhan, president of the Fort Lauderdale-based Federal Association for Insurance Reform, says the Office of Insurance Regulation already requires such reports to be submitted. They just don’t post them on their website because they include proprietary information about companies’ business strategies.

“The insurance commissioner 100% is looking at every expenditure, every expense the insurance company has, even if those contracts are with affiliate or captive organizations,” Handerhan said.

A Dec. 18 story posted on the industry website Insurance Journal reported that ratings firm AM Best found that 13 Florida insurers that went insolvent since 2017 had surrendered almost all of their premiums to subsidies known as Managing General Agencies. Handerhan and other industry representatives were quoted in the story as saying that Florida insurers are so scrutinized by regulators, reinsurance and ratings firms, they had little room for diverting revenue unnecessarily.

Other proposals in the bill would:

— Increase the interest rate on insurance judgments or settlements from 4% to 8%.

— Require insurance adjusters to use electronic estimating software with price data consistent with contractor rates in a home’s geographic market. A loss adjustment report would have to be provided to policyholders within seven days of the inspection.

— Require insurers and policyholders to share equally in the cost of mediation, when invoked. Insurers can no longer delay claims disputes by asserting the right to reinspect damaged property.

Gaetz says he’s aware that the bill has its critics and might not even be heard by a committee — a decision that would lead to its defeat.

“I would expect William Large and others who speak for the insurance industry to oppose the bill. I would be surprised if they didn’t. But I expect a fierce fight.”

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.

https://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/property-insurance-bill-would-repeal-2022-reforms-that-stabilized-the-market-insurers-say

‘Citizens insurance for all’ among insurance proposals filed for spring legislative session

January 25, 2025/in Insurance Newsnet

Ron Hurtibise, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
January 25, 2025

“Citizens insurance for all’ among insurance proposals filed for spring legislative session

Citizens windstorm insurance for all. Closing loopholes for a “bad-faith” insurance claim. Creation of an insurance advisory council. Requiring mediation before policyholders can sue their insurer.

They are among proposed insurance law changes that will face scrutiny in the Florida Legislature this spring. More are likely to follow with five weeks left before the session’s scheduled March 4 start.

So far, no insurance-related bills have been filed for the special session that’s slated to begin on Monday. Condominium safety is one of the subjects that Gov. DeSantis has said he wants addressed.

The biggest proposed insurance change so far, and likely toughest to get passed, would make state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. the provider of all windstorm insurance sold to homeowners in the state.

First proposed last year, the bill would end Citizen’s status as “the insurer of last resort” that provides multiperil coverage to customers who cannot obtain it affordably from the private market.

Spencer Roach, the North Fort Myers-based Republican representative who co-sponsored last year’s version, has retired from the House. But Rep. Hillary Cassel of Broward County, the bill’s co-sponsor, refiled her version in December, shortly before announcing that she had switched political parties from Democratic to Republican. Cassel was then appointed as vice chair of the House Subcommittee on Insurance and Banking, which should boost the bill’s chances of being brought forward for debate by the subcommittee.

Cassel did not respond to a request to discuss the new bill, which is co-sponsored by Democratic House members Christine Hunschofsky, Anna Eskamani, and Marie Paule Woodson.

Roach and Cassel presented their proposal in February to the House Subcommittee on Insurance and Banking, but the group did not vote on it and it wasn’t heard by any other legislative committee.

Regardless of the sponsors’ political parties, the bill will face scrutiny and pushback by lawmakers who will be reluctant to expand the state’s exposure to losses during a time that hurricanes appear to be getting stronger and more destructive.

Citizens, now with fewer than one million policies, is entering the third year of its depopulation push after peaking at 1.4 million policies in September 2023. Lawmakers, regulators and members of the company’s own governing board have long warned that nearly all Florida insurance customers would face steep assessments if Citizens ever becomes unable to pay all claims after a severely destructive hurricane or string of storms.

The bill would require Citizens to make windstorm coverage available for any home, including condo buildings and mobile homes, and their contents.

Private insurers would be able to sell the coverage alongside their products — which would consist of everything else that insurance normally covers, including fire, theft, liability from animal bites, lightning strikes, and flooding from ruptures of pipes, water heaters, washers, driers and dishwashers.

During a hearing before the Insurance and Banking Subcommittee in February, Citizens CEO Tim Cerio said the proposal could cause Citizens’ reinsurance costs to increase by 645% to $5.6 billion. “We don’t even know if there’s enough capacity in the reinsurance market” to provide the needed backstop, he said.

Roach and Cassel argued that the idea would save policyholders money, by saving money that insurers pocket during years with no storms, so it would be available to pay claims when hurricanes strike. Florida homeowners currently pay three times the national average for property insurance.

A former Florida state representative who proposed a similar plan in 2006 projected that the pool would amass an $82 billion surplus if the state managed to avoid catastrophic storms for 10 years. Lawmakers turned a blind eye to his proposal, while Florida avoided a direct hit from a hurricane for 10 years.

With hurricanes now hitting Florida at an accelerated pace — six have come ashore since 2020 — it might not be so easy to accumulate such a large surplus, financial comparison website Bankrate.com suggested in an October post.

‘Bad-faith’ claims would face restrictions

A deputy commissioner of the Office of Insurance Regulation said at the Florida Chamber Insurance Summit in December that the office did not want major new reforms enacted this year. Still, there’s a proposal filed by Sen. Keith Truenow, a Republican representing Lake County and a part of Orange County, to impose new restrictions on bad-faith claims against insurance companies, which is certain to generate opposition from the lobby representing plaintiffs attorneys.

Bad-faith claims typically involve proving that insurers acted negligently or intentionally, including by delaying a settlement in an unreasonable manner, denying claims without investigating, failing to communicate with clients, and misrepresenting policy terms.

The bill would require a court ruling and final judgment that an insurer breached the insurance contract before a policyholder could file a bad-faith claim that can generate an additional financial award. It would bar bad-faith claims from being triggered by insurer payments that follow a demand for judgment or notice of intent to litigate.

It would also require plaintiffs to cite specific bad-faith laws that the insurer is accused of committing, the amount of damages needed to “cure” the violation, and require that the damages sought be available under terms of the insurance customer’s policy.

Under the bill, damages sought by the insured in a bad-faith claim could not include attorney fees or costs.

Mark Delegal, a lobbyist whose firm represents insurance interests including the Florida Justice Reform Institute and State Farm Florida, says Truenow’s bill is intended to fix “loopholes” in state laws that plaintiffs attorneys are “exploiting” to collect legal fees from insurers.

While reforms enacted in 2022 and 2023 “substantially, revolutionarily addressed this problem,” Delegal said, “now the trial bar is up to its same old tricks and exploiting loopholes in the statutes that need to be plugged.”

Asked why he filed the bill, Truenow, through a spokesman, said, “We’ve learned over the past few legislative sessions that there are plenty of carrots and sticks to ensure there is balance in the system. We’re doing our best to ensure consumers get paid quickly for their claims and that we have the right levers to pull on to expand and foster a healthy marketplace. For example, I want to explore what else we can do to ensure insurance companies pay consumers for their losses without clogging up the court system.”

He called the bill, which also includes a bid to cut training hours for agents, “a starting point to get this important conversation rolling,” adding, “my door will be open to all sides of this issue so we get it right.”

Chip Merlin, founder of the Merlin Law Group, said the bad-faith proposal would make it harder to hold insurance companies responsible for their “bad-faith actions” and make it “nearly impossible” for consumers to sue their insurers.

“The claims executives simply do not want to be held accountable for acting in bad faith and do not want to be sued when their own actions harm their customers,” he said.

Reducing coursework for insurance agents

Truenow’s bill also proposes reducing the coursework required to become a general lines insurance agent, from 200 to 60 hours.

Truenow called the 200-hour requirement an “extraordinary barrier to entry” and said the bill “will allow us to examine the pros and cons of rightsizing these requirements to better correspond with national standards and whether that can better serve the needs of Florida’s consumers.”

Mediation would be required

Prior to filing a lawsuit, a policyholder would have to attempt to settle a dispute with an insurer by participating in mediation under a Senate bill filed by Tina Polsky, a Democrat representing parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Creation of advisory council

Sen. Lori Berman, a Democrat representing part of Palm Beach County, proposes creating an Insurance Solutions Advisory Council to compile and analyze data and information about the state’s property and automobile insurance markets.

The council would consist of various insurance experts and be in place for roughly five years between Oct. 1, 2025, and June 30, 2030.

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.

‘Citizens insurance for all’ among insurance proposals filed for spring legislative session

Property insurance bill would repeal 2022 reforms that stabilized the market, insurers say

“Citizens insurance for all’ among insurance proposals filed for spring legislative session

Mark Delegal, a lobbyist whose firm represents insurance interests including the Florida Justice Reform Institute and State Farm Florida, says Truenow’s bill is intended to fix “loopholes” in state laws that plaintiffs attorneys are “exploiting” to collect legal fees from insurers.

While reforms enacted in 2022 and 2023 “substantially, revolutionarily addressed this problem,” Delegal said, “now the trial bar is up to its same old tricks and exploiting loopholes in the statutes that need to be plugged.”

Florida Justice Reform Institute

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