Introduction:
We want to put this information in front of our clients in an effort to keep you informed about the effects in the Florida insurance market related to frivolous lawsuits and to support the legislative efforts to address this below issue. Please take a few minutes to read the email from American Integrity Insurance on lawsuit reform and join us in taking action to voice our concerns to the legislature.
Thank you for trusting the ThompsonBaker Agency with your Insurance needs.
Property Insurance Reform Bill Clears First Committee
Senate Bill 76 by Sen. Jim Boyd passed in the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee yesterday afternoon by a vote of 9-3. The bill now has two remaining stops in the Senate and will next be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
SB 76 aims to stabilize the market and eliminate fraud by:
- Prohibiting the application of attorney fee multipliers on everyday cases.
- Instituting mandatory actual cash value for roofs older than 10 years.
- Reducing the claims filing period from 5 years to 2 years.
- Creating a new attorney fee system, replacing the one way attorney fee. For example, if the claimant obtains a judgment of $20,000 and the claimant’s demand was $40,000, the demand-judgment quotient would be 50%. If the claimant’s reasonable attorney fees were $10,000, the attorney fees paid by the insurer would be $5,000, which is the product of multiplying $10,000 in attorney fees by the demand judgment quotient of 0.5. Less than 20%, the claimant is not entitled to an award of attorney fees. Over 80%, and the claimant receives all of their reasonable attorney fees.
We Still Need Your Help to Achieve Reform This Year!
- Sign this petition to voice your support voice your support of SB 76 and companion measure HB 305!
- Share the petition (by email and social media) with your customers, family and friends, and ask them to share it, too!
- We also created this flyer that you can download, save and share with your customers, friends and colleagues (by email and social media) to help spread the word about this important legislation.
- Follow Floridians for Lawsuit Reform to stay up-to-date
The more we make our voices heard, the more likely we are to get the industry reform that Floridians deserve! We will continue to keep you updated each week on the progress of our legislative reform efforts throughout the 2021 session.
We appreciate your efforts to help us create a strong, viable and affordable property insurance market. Thanks, as always, for your partnership.
