Tag: Tampa Insurance Defense Attorneys

The estimated damage – just to agricultural resources – from Hurricane Michael across Florida and several other states is forecast to go over $1.3 billion, and includes cotton farms, pecan farms, and poultry operations as some of the hardest hit. Hurricanes are especially damaging to cotton crops, leading to an increase in the price of cotton. It is clear that farmers in particular are going to need all the help they can get in order to recover, and most of that help will need to come from crop insurance.

Florida also suffered significant timber losses as well. An estimated three million acres of timber were damaged by the hurricane, along with other commodities. It will likely take years for the industry to recover and replace lost trees.

In anticipation of these losses and those expected to hit homeowners, in mid-October, Gov. Rick Scott ordered emergency changes to insurance rules as they apply Hurricane Michael recovery, specifically. Under these rules, not only do policyholders now have an extra 90 days to submit their claims, but insurance companies are prohibited from canceling or failing to renew homeowners’ policies on homes damaged by Hurricane Michael for 90 days as well. In addition, Florida’s insurance regulator issued an emergency order that freezes any rate hike for 90 days in order to support recovery efforts in areas impacted by the Hurricane.

The longstanding standard of what constitutes bad faith in Florida was determined by the Florida Supreme Court almost 40 years ago. The Court determined that an insurer has a duty to use the same degree of care and diligence as someone “of ordinary care and prudence.” Insurers must investigate the facts, give fair consideration to settlement offers and–where a reasonably prudent person would–pay total recovery.

However, two recent appellate decisions have made some important changes to what constitutes a bad faith insurance claim in the context of third-party liability claims, as we discuss below.

Eleventh Circuit Decision

The first of those decisions—by the Eleventh Circuit—upheld a lower court decision finding that Geico deciding to offer settlement limits twenty days from the first notice of the claim was not done in good faith as a matter of law. The court ultimately upheld the jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs, finding that the jury was reasonable and had enough evidence to conclude that Geico had acted in bad faith.

In September, a lawsuit was filed against Tower Hill Insurance in Florida, alleging that the company engaged in fraud concerning a number of claims filed by Hurricane Irma victims, defrauding them of money that they are owed. The lawsuit specifically alleges that Tower conspired with two other companies—Humble and Ladder Now—to deny or underpay compensation on various insurance claims filed by the hurricane victims.

According to the complaint, Ladder Now is an “unlicensed independent adjusting firm” that effectively worked with Humble, a consulting and restoration firm, to doctor fake engineering reports that ultimately found little-to-no damage done as a result of the hurricane. As a result, the lawsuit not only accuses Tower Hill of fraud, but also of mail and wire fraud, theft, and the use of unlicensed adjusters and engineers to systematically rob policyholders of premiums. The complaint alleges not only past harms to these policyholders—but ongoing harm—as a result of Tower’s allegedly nefarious activities.

According to a new study, Florida’s third-party bad-faith legal environment increases claim costs for every insured vehicle by an average of $106 per claim, or a total of more than $7 billion in additional claim costs over more than a decade. According to some experts, most of these costs can reportedly be attributed to the rapid growth of bodily injury liability claims, as well as Florida’s legal rules and standards when it comes to resolving bad-faith allegations.

Under Florida law, anyone can bring a civil action against an insurance company if they have been damaged by the company’s failure to attempt, “in good faith,” to settle claims when, under all circumstances, they could and should have done so, while acting fairly and honestly towards the insured, with due regard for the insured’s interests.

The report compared key bodily injury liability claims in Florida to similar trends in three other states that are all no-fault (like Florida); specifically, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. According to the results, these three states experienced relatively stable injury claims over the study period after taking primarily administrative approaches to investigating and resolving bad-faith allegations on behalf of car insurance companies. Conversely, Florida’s trends did not reflect this kind of stability.

According to a recent news investigation, a law designed to help give the disabled access in the state of Florida is potentially being used for abusive reasons. Specifically, one man in particular has allegedly filed more than 1,000 lawsuits against local Florida businesses for supposedly violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), without even first bringing his concerns to the business owners and asking that they make specific changes to their accommodations (or even being a patron of the business itself).

In fact, many business owners claim that there are “ADA testers” filing various costly lawsuits—many of them over violations that have been called trivial, such as the height of a toilet paper dispenser being—and in doing so, potentially abusing the system for a cash payout.

The ADA is designed to prevent employers from discriminating against hiring someone due to a disability, and mandates that businesses make reasonable accommodations such that the disabled have access to their facilities. Many have now pointed out that this second requirement is very difficult to comply with because of how specific it is currently worded in terms of the permissible heights of toilet paper dispensers and other amenities, for example. Because of this, they say, even advocates of the disabled have failed to find anything that is 100 percent compliant with the ADA.

A new survey conducted by PolicyGenius reveals that while many Americans may believe that they understand their insurance policies, in fact, they do not, resulting in the mistaken belief that they are often the victims of bad faith insurance decisions. Unfortunately, this mistake could end up costing policyholders a fortune: Not only did the survey find that only four percent of policyholders were able to correctly define the terms that correlate their co-pays, but most individuals did not understand the basics when it comes to co-pays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums, even though they were overly-confident of their understanding.

Unfortunately, not only are consumers overconfident about their own out-of-pocket costs, many aren’t confident at all when it comes to selecting the right insurance plan for their needs. This results in policyholders not only being at risk of choosing the wrong insurance plan, but also misunderstanding their exposure to charges when they receive treatment.