Props to DeSantis/Senate for tort reform in regards to Florida insurance

but the attorneys' fees on those cases are the tail wagging the dog. There are many "bottom feeders" who present glass claims who will need to start writing $99 wills and I won't shed a tear for them.

 

By that I'm assuming you mean that they take those cases because they pay out attorneys' fees. And yes, that's the point. Otherwise, people who have meritorious but unlucrative claims are left in a position where no private attorney is going to help them because there's not enough money in it.

 

The incentive isn't in the worthiness, it's in the volume. If I can get 100 insurance companies to give me 5 grand, that's easier than getting 1 company to give me 500K.
Besides, the guy is a lawyer, businessman and a billionaire, I'm pretty sure he evaluated the stripping of time to conduct pre-suit investigations to see if it would be worth it.

 

Is it easier to do that? And you're assuming that at no point are the insurance companies going to get wise and call your bluff. When you engage in behavior like that, you create a reputation for yourself, a reputation that discourages people from bringing good cases to you and encourages the other side to assume your cases aren't worth shit.

As for Morgan, I have no doubt that he considers filing all these cases worth it, on top of the duty to protect the client's rights. The point I'm making is that by cleaving the SOL the way they did, the legislature did more to encourage frivolous lawsuits than to discourage them.

 

The only thing Morgan sees worth in is himself. Oh and maybe a driver since he can’t any more.

 

If DeSantis is behind this, the only entities that are going to benefit from it are the insurance companies, his big money donors.

 

From LeadingAge - an insurance industry publication. I underlined one key sentence showing that attorneys & public adjusters earned more than 2X than what claimants received. Perhaps the new law is the pendulum swinging back because it definitely is out of whack in Florida.
Sunny Skies Ahead? | Leader's Edge Magazine

The other key feature of SB 2-A jettisoned the one-way attorney fee provision, which entitled a policyholder to reasonable attorneys fees in an insurance-related lawsuit in which an amount of recovery was awarded. Insurers, who absorbed the cost of the fees, had long argued that amounts were unreasonable, too much of the awarded recovery going to attorneys and not enough to claimants. Friedlander cited a report by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation indicating that 71% of the $51 billion paid out by Florida insurers over a 10-year period went to attorneys fees and public adjusters.

“There were awards where claimants received $10,000 while plaintiff attorneys received hundreds of thousands of dollars,” says Fred Karlinsky, shareholder and global co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s Insurance Regulatory and Transactions Practice Group in Fort Lauderdale. “Florida was the only state that had this provision, explaining why 79% of all homeowners insurance lawsuits nationwide were filed in the state last year. The elimination of the one-way attorney fees provision was not only good but necessary, as these costs are eventually passed down to all policyholders.”

 

This is so deceptive. Of the plaintiff’s lawyers earned large fees, it is because the insurance company made them work hard and long hours to secure the results. The attorneys are paid only after a Court scrutinizes the bill and finds that the time expended was reasonable and necessary, and the rates charged are consistent with the rates charged in the community for a lawyer of similar experience performing the tasks.

So again, if you’re angry at the high costs, perhaps blame the insurance company for failing to honor its policy and pay the insured the money the insured is entitled under the terms of the policy, and then forcing the insured’s team to labor to get what the insured is entitled.

 

Property insurers are going insolvent because of untimely climate change and natural disasters. If you’re arguing that the insurers shouldn’t have to pay out their claims because it is harmful to their business model, then why allow insurance?

And to be fair, there’s two sides to every argument. Not all insurers are bad, and not all plaintiff’s lawyers are pure of heart. I was just responding to the argument that high payouts to attorneys and the insured’s advocate adjuster is not necessarily the fault of the lawyers. The insurers are not your friend, and make their adjustment decisions based on business principles, not “fairness”

 

They aren't really going insolvent left and right, at least the major ones with proven assets. From what I can tell, a lot of those companies are no-name carriers who either come in as Citizens take-out companies or come in underpricing policies trying to take advantage of the higher prices carriers that have been in the state for decades have to build up a portfolio very quickly. They write a lot of business, then go belly-up, withdraw from the market or have massive rate increases when they start paying big claims. They can take that gamble because the state requires very little to get admitted to the market (they desperately want to unload Citizens policies), and if they cant pay claims in a disaster, there are mechanisms to surcharge all policy holders in the state.

 

Maybe because FL actually has been pounded by hurricanes and property owners have actual (not “frivolous” damage). This last storm also came at a particularly bad time as far as supply chain and labor shortages. Everyone needing work done is competing against the homebuilders and paying twice as much (and that’s even with the homebuilding bubble deflating a bit due to fed reserve actions this past year).

 

How hard and long hours does an attorney have to work to argue that a house needs a new roof?

 

It’s interesting that every southern state along the coast from North Carolina around to Texas has essentially the same risks as Florida from storms and climate change, yet Florida accounts for 71% of insurance lawsuits in the entire country. Why are the insurance companies being honest in all the other coastal states, and somehow dishonest in Florida? That just doesn’t make sense.

While making sure that insurance companies treat customers fairly is a valid concern, it’s a much greater and more probable concern that insurance companies either go out of business or stop writing home insurance in Florida. I know of one company that did the latter. They still write commercial insurance in Florida, but got out of the homeowner market.

You can bash insurance companies all you want, but if all the private companies leave Florida, you’ll be stuck with the state providing insurance, which will be funded by the taxpayers.

 

I've seen it all. I try to be as objective as possible and think it's difficult to generalize.

I've seen cases where plaintiff's counsel basically wants $10K for filing a complaint or agreeing to appraisal. I've seen cases where plaintiffs have entered into a contingency contract to take a percentage of the recovery and have done very little. Many want really high rates and multipliers. I've heard from plaintiffs' attorneys that a public adjuster has gotten homeowners' expectations so high that it makes it hard to settle because their clients had a roof claim, at best, but now have their heart set on new floors and cabinets, too. I've seen homeowners demanding payments for mold when mold is excluded and their attorneys didn't read the Policy. I've seen where roofers or PAs convince people with an old roof that they had hail damage when it's clearly wear and tear. I've seen aerial photographs showing tarping and roof problems existed before the alleged date of loss even occurred. I even had a case where a homeowner fired her lawyer who was demanding over $100K and told me after she fired him that she didn't think it was right because her actual damages were only about $10K and they already did the repairs. I advised the carrier to pay her immediately despite genuine coverage defenses relating to the plumbing system.

On the other hand, I've seen reasonable demands where plaintiffs' attorneys have to take depositions and hire experts. They're just doing their job. They also have to make sure the PA gets paid since that's not an attorney fee and the PA share is not recoverable as a cost (unless there's bad faith). In some cases, the attorney's fees wind up being well in excess of any amounts in dispute or amounts paid. But there's nothing improper about that. Some cases are more heavily litigated than others. If the attorneys are having to push those cases to get a fair settlement or go to trial, that's what they're supposed to do for their clients, and they should be paid. I've also seen claims after hurricanes, for example, where insurers are having to hire in house or third party adjusters who have less experience. Sometimes coverage is denied when it shouldn't be, and sometimes homeowners are low-balled (whether intentionally or not) and initially told the damage is below deductible.

I think there are good and honest people working both sides of the first party world. And also a lot of dishonest people. That's the way it goes. And this doesn't even get into issues relating to third party personal injury claims and the insurance side of those. We have seen medical bills climb dramatically and juries awarding significantly more than they would have for the very same injuries not too many years ago.

 

The time it takes to convince a judge that the insurance company screwed the insured. And as I said, all compensation awarded as fees must pass scrutiny that the time is reasonable and necessary.

 

This is wrong. Look at a map. Florida is a large peninsula which is almost entirely surrounded by water. Even its inland is subject to hurricane damage because of the geography.

As for Hurricanes, I recall reading (and I’m not going to take the time to find it) that Florida has been harder hit with more regularity, due to border with both the Gulf and Atlantic than any other State and it’s not close.

This is not insurance bashing.

 

Our association was involved in litigation that never went to court but lasted 3 years until settlement. In the interim, the insurance company replaced their counsel, did all kinds of procedural stuff to stall until they finally tested a judges patience. They requested inspection after inspection, etc. Then they wanted to settle about a month before the court date when previously they had no interest in doing so. There is definitely an attritional aspect to this, the insurance companies have lawyers too, and more often than no they are willing to take years on these things if they have to.

 

Only 29% of insurance payments actually going to claimants is pretty hard to believe. Perhaps the devil is in the details and there is a certain type of case that distorts the numbers.

Unfortunately, I've had 2 different property insurance claims in the last 10 years and both required an attorney to motivate the insurance companies to honor their agreement. One was a storm claim taking almost 2 years to resolve, the other was a water leak claim. In neither case did the attorney get paid anything close to what I received, much less 71% of the payout. Im aware of multiple claimants (family/friends) with similar experiences.

 

Related. More symptom than cause of the problems, but again shows the mindset of state government to protect the money and exploit the consumer. It’s a big problem overall seemingly impossible to fix, but this just makes it worse


The case, which came out in a civil lawsuit, was reported in 2021 to the Department of Financial Services, the state agency that investigates insurance fraud.

But state investigators quickly dismissed the complaint without interviewing Buvens. A spokesperson for the head of the agency, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, said it was closed “due to lack of participation by witnesses.” Yet that claim was refuted by Buvens in repeated follow-up emails to his office.

Since then, at least seven other adjusters for insurance companies have come forward saying their reports were similarly manipulated to pay homeowners less than their claim estimates. Four have given sworn testimony in civil cases, which can be used in criminal court. Three others spoke during the Florida legislative session in December.

Patronis’ office has reopened Buvens’ case as part of a larger investigation into claims against United Property and Casualty, now insolvent.


Insurance case reopened
Insurance case reopened - Tampa Bay Times

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