USA – FLORIDA Trends and Developments Contributed by: John David Dickenson, Nicole Connors and Juan Garrido, Cozen O’Connor
Cozen O’Connor 1801 N Military Trail, Suite 200 Boca Raton FL 33431 USA Tel: +1 561 515 5260 Email: jdickenson@cozen.com Web: www.cozen.com
It is impossible to discuss trends and developments in Florida insurance litigation without discussing the substantial legislative tort reforms that took place in 2023. For much of the past last two decades, Florida’s insurance market was constrained by perhaps the most aggressive insurance litigation environment in the United States. In 2023, after numerous failed prior attempts, the Florida Legislature passed substantial reforms aimed at freeing Florida’s insurance market, including significant reforms to insurance bad faith claims. The reforms are still working their way through the courts, and there are still limited fulsome interpreta- tions of many of the key provisions. However, deci- sions and results are steadily appearing, and it is clear that the reforms are impacting cases and the manner in which liability and insurance bad faith cases are litigated in Florida. Some of the key reforms from 2023, enacted via HB 837, include: • a new bad faith standard codified in Section 624.155 (5)(a) that “negligence alone is insufficient to constitute bad faith”; • a new 90-day safe harbour period for insurers to investigate liability claims; • a provision dictating that claimants, insureds and their lawyers now owe reciprocal good-faith duties to insurers pursuant to Section 624.155 (5)(b); • new options under the newly created Section 624.155 (6) for insurers to deal with instances where “two or more third-party claimants have competing claims arising out of a single occur-
rence, which in total may exceed the available policy limits of one or more of the insured parties who may be liable to the third-party claimants”; and • a move to a modified comparative fault system for liability claims. The Reforms Are Working It is clear that the 2023 reforms are effective when lawyers and litigants go to extreme lengths to avoid those reforms. The recent decision in Abdullah Baker v A - ONE Commercial Insurance Risk Retention Group , Inc . (M.D. Fla. Aug. 3, 2026) makes this abundantly clear. The Abdullah Baker decision is less notable for its treatment of specific insurance bad faith reforms than for its unusually blunt criticism of plaintiff’s coun- sel and their purposeful efforts to avoid the effects of Florida’s 2023 tort reforms. In Abdullah Baker , the federal court concluded that plaintiff Abdullah Baker’s (“Baker”) attorneys deliber- ately filed what they knew was an unripe bad faith action just days before the tort reforms became effec- tive. Plaintiff then manipulated procedural rules to pre- serve that pre-reform filing date, while simultaneously withholding service for more than two years. Needless to say, the court was not pleased with the plaintiff and his attorneys’ attempts to avoid the impact of the 2023 reforms. Ultimately, the court denied remand to state court, dismissed the action and found that plaintiff had acted in bad faith in his litigation behaviours. The court fur- ther referred plaintiff’s counsel to the Florida Bar for an investigation concerning their litigation tactics.
313 I NSURANCE L I T IGATI O N 2026
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