Florida OIR: Litigation Cost Data Due March 1

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation is reminding property/casualty carriers that litigation cost data for 2022 is due March 1.

The data call was required by Senate Bill 76 in 2021 as a way to determine the amount of claims litigation settlements and judgments that go to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

But insurers have said they don’t have access to some of the information requested, including fees paid by policyholders to their attorneys.

A template for the data reporting, shown here, asks for detailed claim information for every claim closed in the calendar year, including fees paid to named attorneys. The template also asks if required fields are complete and if the data is “unknown.”

OIR instructions are available here.

The need for legal fee data may be less urgent than it was just a few months ago. In December, the Florida Legislature approved a major reform bill that repealed what was known as the one-way attorney fee rule in the state, a rule that insurers said had incentivized claimants’ law firms to file unnecessary lawsuits.

The reform measure also banned assignment-of-benefits agreements in property insurance claims, which could significantly reduce claims litigation. Litigation has been called one of the top reasons that some Florida-based insurers have become insolvent and why homeowner premiums have soared in the state in the last two years.