Florida’s 2021 Presuit Notice Law is Not Retroactive, State Supreme Court Says

October 27, 2026 by William Rabb

Before Florida lawmakers in 2022 enacted sweeping insurance law changes that cut the legs out of what had been called an excessive and burgeoning number of property claims lawsuits, they tinkered for years with ways to rein in the costly litigation.

One of the statutes, approved in 2021, required policyholders to give insurers 10 days’ notice before filing lawsuits. That law, the result of Senate Bill 76, was seen as a way to give carriers a second chance to settle a claim before litigation erupted.

But since then, questions have remained over whether the law applied to insurance policies written before the July 1, 2021 effective date of the statute, or only to claims or lawsuits filed after that date. Five Florida appeals courts have offered opinions on the retroactivity of Statute 627.70152, most of them differing in one way or another.

In 2023, the state’s 6^th District Court of Appeal sided with the homeowner in a case known as Universal Property & Casualty Insurance vs. Rebecca Hughes. The judges found that the 2021 law did not apply retroactively and that the homeowner was not required to give pre-suit notice—even though Hughes’ suit was filed a month after the law took effect.

The 6^th District’s opinion conflicted directly with the 4^th District Court of Appeals, which had held in 2023 that the presuit notice requirement applies retroactively—to policies in effect at the time the law took effect. The 6^th District asked the Supreme Court to settle the matter.

The justices answered on Oct. 22, upholding the 6^th DCA and disapproving the 4^th District’s ruling. The Florida Legislature had included no language in Senate Bill 76 that required retroactivity, the high court said. The policy period was from 2019 to 2020.

“So, on its face, no provision of section 627.70152 speaks to application of the statute to insurance policies issued before the statute’s effective date. And nothing in our precedent demands that we disturb that silence,” the opinion reads. “The correct answer is to respect the Legislature’s choice not to clearly require retroactive application of the statute.”

The lead plaintiffs’ attorney in the appeal, Matthew Danahy, of Tampa, said the Supreme Court ruling settles the conflict between the lower appellate courts’ 2023 opinions, strongly in favor of policyholders.

“The insurance industry pushed the retroactive application argument to try to further limit their insureds’ access to court, despite the fact that their policies were issued before the effective date of the statute and the absence of express language in the statute indicating that it was retroactive,” Danahy said in an email.

Another plaintiffs’ attorney who represents insureds lamented the fact that it took years to resolve the question.

“While this ruling is a positive development for Florida’s consumers, it is unfortunate the delay in rendering this outcome resulting in many policyholders losing their right to timely pursue their claims based on dismissals for the failure to file the notice of intent,” Clausen Lozier said in an email.

The ruling may not affect many pending lawsuits. Unlike the battleground years of the early 2020s, when 10 Florida property insurers went insolvent due in large part to soaring litigation costs, the last three years have seen a remarkable decline in claims lawsuits. And attorneys on both sides have said that few claims remain that fall into the category of policies in effect before the 2021 law was enacted but with lawsuits filed after the July 1, 2021 effective date of the statute.

“At this stage, the decision is expected to have little practical impact because only a very limited number of open cases remain that could be potentially affected by the timing issue,” said Travis Miller, a chief attorney for Universal.

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