- • Florida’s first-party bad-faith remedy is statutory (§ 624.155). There is generally no common-law first-party bad-faith tort in Florida.
- • The usual grounds are not attempting in good faith to settle a claim when it could and should have done so (§ 624.155(1)(b)1), or an unfair-claim-settlement practice listed in § 626.9541(1)(i).
- • A statutory bad-faith claim generally does not accrue until the underlying coverage and damages dispute is resolved in the insured’s favor (commonly framed after Blanchard, Fla. 1991). For property insurers, § 624.1551 now requires an adverse adjudication by a court and a final judgment; a settlement or paid appraisal award does not qualify.
- • Filing a Civil Remedy Notice with the Department of Financial Services is a condition precedent, and it gives the insurer 60 days to pay or cure.
- • The statute can reach damages beyond the policy limits, plus interest and, when § 624.155 applies, court costs and reasonable attorney fees.
Why Florida bad faith is a statute, not a tort
In many states, a policyholder who is mistreated by their own insurer can sue for common-law bad faith. Florida is different for first-party claims. Florida courts have generally held there is no common-law first-party bad-faith cause of action. The remedy the Legislature provided is the statutory one, Fla. Stat. § 624.155. That single fact shapes everything below: the elements, the timing, and the paperwork are set by the statute, and missing a step is fatal in a way a flexible common-law standard would not be.
A separate line of law governs third-party (liability) bad faith, where an insurer’s failure to settle exposes its policyholder to an excess judgment. This guide is about the first-party situation most hurricane policyholders face: you filed a claim on your own property policy, and the carrier denied, delayed, or underpaid. The distinctions are technical and consequential. A Florida attorney should confirm which framework fits your facts.
What § 624.155 actually says
Section 624.155 creates a civil action for a person damaged by an insurer that, among other things, does not attempt in good faith to settle a claim when it could and should have done so, or commits one of the unfair claim practices listed in § 626.9541(1)(i). It requires written notice to the insurer and to the Department of Financial Services before suit, and it gives the insurer a window to pay or otherwise cure. Typical statutory framing:
PARAPHRASE · READ THE STATUTE ITSELF A person may bring a civil action against an insurer that fails to settle a claim in good faith when, under the circumstances, it could and should have done so, but only after filing the required Civil Remedy Notice and giving the insurer 60 days to cure.
That is a paraphrase, not the operative language. The exact wording, the list of triggering conduct, and the remedies are in the statute. Read it against your facts, or have counsel do it. The verified link is in sources.
The elements you have to show
A statutory first-party bad-faith case is usually built on a handful of moving parts. Think of them as a checklist a court will run, not a guarantee, and not a substitute for legal advice:
The § 626.9541 predicate
Section 624.155 does a lot of its work by reference: one way to trigger it is an unfair claim settlement practice listed in § 626.9541(1)(i). Those are the specific claim-handling behaviors Florida law calls unfair: misrepresenting facts or policy provisions, failing to act promptly on communications, failing to adopt reasonable investigation standards, and failing to explain a denial in writing, among others. The separate good-faith-settlement ground, not attempting in good faith to settle a claim when the insurer could and should have done so, comes directly from § 624.155(1)(b)1. The full list, and how it becomes the backbone of a bad-faith case, is in the § 626.9541 guide.
Practical point: a bad-faith case is easier to see when the claim file shows a pattern: repeated missed deadlines, an investigation that ignored obvious evidence, a payment far below a well-documented loss. Whether that pattern meets the statutory standard is a question for the finder of fact, not something any web page can promise.
When the claim accrues
Timing is where first-party bad-faith cases most often stumble. Florida courts have generally treated a determination of coverage and the extent of the loss in the insured’s favor as a predicate to a § 624.155 action, a principle commonly traced to Blanchard v. State Farm (Fla. 1991) and refined in later decisions. For property insurers, Fla. Stat. § 624.1551 (added by the 2022 reforms) hardens the rule: the insured must first obtain an adverse adjudication by a court and a final judgment, and an accepted offer of judgment or a paid appraisal award expressly does not qualify. In practice, that means the coverage or breach-of-contract fight usually comes first; the bad-faith count is frequently pleaded but held (abated) until the underlying dispute resolves.
The takeaway is sequencing, not despair: build and win the coverage case, preserve the claim file, and file the Civil Remedy Notice at the right time. Get the order wrong and a meritorious bad-faith claim can be dismissed as premature. This is a textbook example of something to run past a licensed Florida attorney rather than time yourself.
What damages it reaches
The reason bad faith matters is that it can reach beyond the four corners of the policy. Where § 624.155 applies, the damages can include the harm caused by the insurer’s conduct (which may exceed the policy limits) together with interest, and court costs and reasonable attorney fees as the statute provides. That is the leverage the statute is designed to create: an insurer that could have paid a covered claim and did not may face exposure larger than the number it disputed.
The specifics (which damages, in what amount, and whether fees are available on your facts) depend on the current statute and how courts are applying it, including after the 2022 reforms below. Treat the figures in any summary, including this one, as general information, not a prediction of your recovery.
The CRN condition precedent
You cannot bring a § 624.155 action without first filing a Civil Remedy Notice of Insurer Violation with the Florida Department of Financial Services and serving it on the insurer. It is a genuine condition precedent, not a formality, and the statute gives the insurer 60 days to pay the damages owed or otherwise cure. If the insurer pays within that window, the bad-faith action is generally cut off (the issue addressed in Talat Enterprises v. Aetna, Fla. 2000).
Because the notice defines the violations and the cure, its contents matter enormously. The full walkthrough (what a CRN must state, how it is filed, and the traps in the 60-day window) is in the Civil Remedy Notice guide.
What the 2022 and 2023 reforms changed
Florida’s December 2022 special session (SB 2-A) significantly reshaped property-insurance litigation. Among other things, it eliminated one-way attorney fees for property claims (HB 837 then repealed the statutes entirely in 2023), and the separate presuit notice for property-insurance suits under § 627.70152, created in 2021 by SB 76, was tightened by the 2022 reforms. That presuit notice is not the same thing as the Civil Remedy Notice; they are distinct requirements with different purposes, and a property case can implicate both.
Two changes bear directly on bad faith. The 2022 reforms added § 624.1551: a bad-faith action against a property insurer now requires an adverse adjudication by a court and a final judgment, and an accepted offer of judgment or a paid appraisal award does not qualify. Then HB 837 (2023) amended § 624.155 itself: mere negligence alone is insufficient to constitute bad faith, the insured or claimant has a duty to act in good faith on information, demands, deadlines, and settlement, and the trier of fact may reduce damages for a claimant's failure to do so.
The reforms are recent, technical, and still being interpreted by courts. How they affect the availability of fees, the mechanics of presuit notice, and the value of a bad-faith claim is precisely the kind of moving target that calls for current legal advice. Confirm the current statute and its application to your claim with a licensed Florida attorney.
Florida bad-faith FAQ
Is bad faith the same as my denied claim?
No. The denied or underpaid claim is a coverage/breach-of-contract dispute about the policy. Bad faith is a separate wrong about the carrier’s conduct in handling that claim: how it investigated, communicated, and paid. In Florida the two usually proceed in sequence: resolve the coverage dispute first, then pursue bad faith if the conduct supports it. This is general information; a licensed attorney can tell you how it maps to your file.
Does Florida have a common-law bad-faith claim for property losses?
Generally no for first-party claims. Florida courts have held there is no common-law first-party bad-faith cause of action; the remedy for a first-party insured is the statutory one under § 624.155. (Third-party/liability bad faith has a separate common-law history.) Confirm how this applies to your situation with counsel; the distinctions are technical.
What does “could and should have settled” mean?
It is the core good-faith-settlement ground, § 624.155(1)(b)1: not attempting in good faith to settle claims when, under all the circumstances, the insurer could and should have done so. (The phrase “reasonably clear” appears in § 624.155(1)(b)3, on settlements across portions of coverage.) What meets the standard is fact-specific and litigated case by case. A denial that ignores clear evidence, or a payment far below a well-documented loss, is the kind of conduct plaintiffs point to, but whether it qualifies is for the finder of fact.
Do I have to win the coverage case before I can sue for bad faith?
Typically yes for a statutory first-party claim. Florida courts generally treat a determination of coverage and the extent of damages in the insured’s favor as a predicate to a § 624.155 action, often framed after Blanchard v. State Farm (Fla. 1991) and later decisions. For property insurers, § 624.1551 goes further: it requires an adverse adjudication by a court and a final judgment, and an accepted offer of judgment or a paid appraisal award does not qualify. Bad-faith counts are frequently pleaded but abated until the underlying dispute resolves.
Can I recover more than my policy limits?
Potentially. A core point of bad-faith law is that the remedy can reach the full amount of the loss caused by the insurer’s conduct (which may exceed the policy limits) plus interest, and where § 624.155 applies, court costs and reasonable attorney fees. The specific damages available depend on the facts and current statute; confirm with counsel.
What did the 2022 reforms do to bad-faith claims?
Florida’s December 2022 special-session law (SB 2-A) reshaped property-insurance litigation: it eliminated one-way attorney fees for property claims and tightened the separate presuit notice for property suits (§ 627.70152, created in 2021 by SB 76). The 2022 reforms also added § 624.1551, requiring a court adjudication and final judgment against a property insurer before a bad-faith action, and HB 837 (2023) amended § 624.155: mere negligence alone is not bad faith, and the claimant has a duty to act in good faith. The Civil Remedy Notice process under § 624.155 remains its own condition precedent, distinct from that presuit notice. The interaction is complex and evolving, and this is exactly the kind of thing to confirm with a Florida attorney.
- Fla. Stat. § 624.155: Civil remedy ↗ : The statutory first-party bad-faith remedy: predicate violations, the Civil Remedy Notice, the 60-day cure period, and available damages.
- Fla. Stat. § 624.155 (Online Sunshine · leg.state.fl.us) ↗ : Alternate official text of the civil-remedy statute at the Florida Legislature’s statute portal.
- Fla. Stat. § 626.9541: Unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts ↗ : Subsection (1)(i) lists the unfair claim settlement practices that commonly serve as the predicate for a § 624.155 action.
- Fla. Stat. § 624.1551: Civil remedy actions against property insurers ↗ : Requires an adverse adjudication by a court and a final judgment before a § 624.155(1)(b) action against a property insurer; an accepted offer of judgment or paid appraisal award does not qualify.
- Fla. Stat. § 627.70152: Suits arising under a property insurance policy ↗ : The property-insurance presuit notice, created in 2021 by SB 76 and tightened in 2022: a separate requirement from the Civil Remedy Notice.
- Civil Remedy System: Florida Department of Financial Services ↗ : Where the Civil Remedy Notice is filed and served, and where existing notices can be searched.
- SB 2-A (2022 Special Session A): property insurance reform ↗ : The December 2022 law that eliminated one-way attorney fees for property claims and tightened the § 627.70152 presuit notice.
- Blanchard v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 575 So. 2d 1289 (Fla. 1991): Commonly cited for the principle that a first-party bad-faith claim accrues after the coverage/damages dispute is resolved for the insured.
- Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 753 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 2000): Addressed the effect of the insurer paying the damages owed within the 60-day cure window under § 624.155.
Not legal advice; consult an attorney about your specific claim.
You have the statute. The sequence still has to be right.
Florida does not recognize a common-law first-party bad-faith tort. Your remedy for a property claim is one statute, Fla. Stat. § 624.155, and it fails on procedure before a jury weighs the carrier's conduct. The claim almost always rests on a statutory ground: most often the failure to attempt in good faith to settle a claim when the carrier could and should have done so (§ 624.155(1)(b)1), or an unfair claim-settlement practice listed in § 626.9541(1)(i). Whether a flat denial or a payment far below a documented loss meets that standard is for the finder of fact.
Sequence decides the case. You generally establish coverage and the amount owed in your favor first; for property claims, § 624.1551 requires a court adjudication and final judgment, and the bad-faith count is usually pleaded and then abated. Before suit, a Civil Remedy Notice filed with the Department of Financial Services is a condition precedent, handing the insurer 60 days to pay or cure. Know which claim you hold: the first-party versus third-party distinction sets your prerequisites, and the Florida overview collects the deadlines. Where § 624.155 applies, the remedy can reach the full loss caused by the carrier's conduct, past the policy limits, plus interest, court costs, and reasonable attorney fees, none of it automatic. If your claim was denied, start with the denial guides.
Wondering if § 624.155 is in play?
Send the denial or payment letter, the estimate, and your claim correspondence. You’ll get a straight read on where the coverage dispute stands and whether the carrier’s conduct looks like a statutory bad-faith case.
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