Insurance Bad Faith in Florida: What It Is, How to Spot It, and What You Can Do

You filed a claim. You paid your premiums for years. And now your insurance company is dragging its feet, offering you far less than your injuries are worth, or denying your claim outright. Something feels wrong. You might be right, and what you’re experiencing may have a name: insurance bad faith.

Viles & Beckman, The 5-Star Law Firm®, represents injured people in Southwest Florida who have been treated unfairly by their own insurance companies or by the insurer of the driver who hurt them. This guide explains what insurance bad faith means in Florida, how to recognize it, and what legal options you have.

What is insurance bad faith in Florida?

Insurance bad faith is when an insurance company fails to deal fairly and honestly with you in handling your claim. Every insurance policy is a contract, and Florida law requires insurers to honor that contract in good faith, which means they must investigate claims promptly, evaluate them honestly, and pay what is legitimately owed without unnecessary delay or manipulation.

Florida’s primary bad faith statute is Florida Statute 624.155, which allows injured people to bring a civil action against an insurer that fails to act in good faith. Florida also recognizes common law bad faith claims in certain third-party situations.

There are two types of bad faith claims in Florida:

• First-party bad faith: You sue your own insurance company for failing to properly handle a claim you filed, such as a claim under your own uninsured motorist (UM) coverage or your homeowner’s policy.
• Third-party bad faith: A liability insurer (covering the driver who hit you) fails to settle within their policy limits when they should have, exposing their insured to a verdict exceeding those limits. The insured’s rights against their own insurer may then be assigned to you.

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What does insurance bad faith actually look like?

Bad faith is not just a company being slow or offering less than you hoped. It is a pattern of behavior that crosses from mere negligence into a failure to act fairly and honestly. Common examples of insurance bad faith in Florida personal injury cases include:

• Failing to conduct a timely and thorough investigation of your claim
• Denying a claim without a reasonable basis, especially when liability is clear
• Making a settlement offer that is unreasonably low and bears no relationship to the actual value of your injuries
• Delaying payment without justification, even after liability has been established
• Misrepresenting the terms of your policy or your legal rights under it
• Failing to communicate with you in a timely manner
• Pressuring you to accept a quick, inadequate settlement before you understand the full extent of your injuries
• Refusing to settle within policy limits when a reasonable insurer would have done so, thereby exposing their insured to an excess verdict

Insurance companies call quick settlement offers “good faith”, but an offer made before you have finished medical treatment and before anyone knows the full extent of your injuries is almost never a fair offer. Accepting it closes your claim permanently.

How did Florida’s HB 837 change bad faith law?

Florida’s 2023 tort reform law (House Bill 837) made it harder, not easier, to pursue bad faith claims against insurers. Here are the key changes:

• Negligence alone is no longer enough: Under the old law, an insurer’s negligent handling of your claim could support a bad faith action. Under HB 837, you must show the insurer acted with more than simple negligence.
• 90-day safe harbor: After receiving notice of a claim, insurers now have 90 days to tender policy limits without facing bad faith liability, even if they took the full 90 days while you waited.
• Reciprocal duties: HB 837 now requires injured claimants to cooperate with the insurer and furnish information about their claim. An insurer can use your failure to cooperate as a defense.
• One-way attorney fees repealed: Before HB 837, if a policyholder won a bad faith lawsuit, they could recover attorney fees from the insurer. That provision was eliminated, making bad faith litigation more expensive for claimants.

These changes make it more important than ever to work with an experienced attorney if you believe your insurer is acting in bad faith. The procedural requirements are complex and the window to act correctly is narrow.

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What is a Civil Remedy Notice and why does it matter?

Before you can file a first-party bad faith lawsuit in Florida, you must file a Civil Remedy Notice (CRN) with the Florida Department of Financial Services. This is a mandatory step. Skipping it will stop your bad faith claim in its tracks before it starts.

The CRN must include:

• The specific statutory violations you are alleging
• The facts and circumstances supporting your claim
• The relevant policy language
• A statement that the notice is filed under Florida Statute 624.155

Once the CRN is filed, the insurer has 60 days to “cure” the alleged bad faith by paying the full amount of the claim. If they do, the bad faith lawsuit cannot proceed. If they don’t, or if their cure is inadequate, you may proceed with your civil action.

The CRN process is technical and an error on the form can derail your entire claim. Never attempt to file a CRN without an attorney. The 60-day cure window is also strategically important — an experienced attorney uses it to document the insurer’s response for trial.

Can I sue my own insurance company in Florida?

Yes. In Florida, first-party bad faith claims under Statute 624.155 allow you to sue your own insurer when they fail to properly handle your claim. The most common first-party bad faith scenarios for personal injury victims include:

• Your own uninsured motorist (UM) insurer refusing to pay full value on your UM claim after you were hit by an uninsured driver
• Your PIP insurer delaying or denying legitimate medical bills
• Your homeowner’s insurer failing to pay a valid claim after a covered incident

First-party bad faith claims under the statute require that the underlying claim — the breach of the insurance contract — be established before the bad faith lawsuit proceeds. In other words, you must first prove your insurer owed you money under the policy, and then prove they wrongfully failed to pay it.

What can I recover in a bad faith insurance lawsuit in Florida?

If you establish bad faith, the damages available go well beyond what you would have recovered on your underlying claim. In a successful bad faith action, you may be entitled to:

• The full amount of the original underlying claim — no longer capped at policy limits
• Consequential damages: financial losses you suffered as a result of the insurer’s delay or denial
• Extracontractual damages: compensation for harm beyond the policy itself
• Potentially, attorney fees in certain circumstances

The punitive nature of bad faith damages is intentional. Florida law uses the bad faith remedy to deter insurance companies from routinely underpaying claims because the math works in their favor. When bad faith liability is possible, the insurer’s calculus changes.

How do I know if my insurance company is acting in bad faith?

Bad faith is rarely announced. Insurers have legal teams and trained adjusters whose job is to handle claims in ways that protect the company while maintaining the appearance of good faith. Warning signs to watch for:

• Your claim has been pending for months with no resolution and no clear explanation
• The adjuster’s settlement offer is dramatically lower than your documented medical expenses and losses
• The insurer denies your claim without explaining which policy provision they are relying on
• You receive conflicting information from different representatives at the company
• The insurer pressures you to settle quickly, especially before you have finished treatment
• Your calls and correspondence go unanswered for extended periods
• The insurer claims your injuries were pre-existing without conducting a thorough investigation

If you are a Southwest Florida injury victim and something about how your insurer is handling your claim feels wrong, call us before you sign anything. A free consultation costs you nothing and could reveal whether you have a bad faith claim worth pursuing.

What should I do if I think my insurer is acting in bad faith?

• Document everything: save every piece of correspondence, record the date and content of every phone call, keep all denial letters and lowball offer letters
• Do not accept a settlement that does not fully compensate you — accepting closes your claim permanently
• Do not sign any release or authorization without having an attorney review it first
• Contact a personal injury attorney who handles bad faith claims as soon as possible — the procedural requirements have strict timelines
• Do not be discouraged by the insurer’s framing of what your claim is worth — insurers routinely undervalue claims

We Fight Insurance Companies. That’s What We Do.

At Viles & Beckman, we have spent decades going up against insurance companies that don’t deal fairly with injured people in Southwest Florida. If you believe your insurer is acting in bad faith, or if you’ve received a settlement offer that doesn’t come close to covering your losses, call us. The consultation is free, there’s no obligation, and we only get paid if we win.