Bad Insurance Claims Practices Is #1 Complaint for Florida Policyholders
Florida’s Department of Financial Services publishes consumer complaint data every year, and claims handling — slow pays, denied claims, pressure tactics — has held the top spot for as long as I can remember. People call our Bonita Springs office after dealing with exactly these situations, and the first thing I tell them is that what they experienced is not unusual. The carriers have refined these tactics over decades because they work. Most policyholders give up before the file gets expensive.
The legal landscape in Florida shifted hard in 2023, and most policyholders have not caught up. The deadlines are shorter. The fault rules are stricter. And the carriers are aware of both of those changes, even when the people they insure are not.
What Florida law actually says about bad-faith and slow-pay claims
A handful of Florida statutes do most of the work in this area, and they are worth knowing by name.
Florida Statute 624.155 — the bad-faith statute. This is the law that lets a policyholder sue an insurer for not acting in good faith. It covers four big buckets: failing to attempt a fair settlement when the carrier could and should, failing to pay claims after liability has become reasonably clear, failing to acknowledge and act promptly on communications, and denying claims without conducting a reasonable investigation. Before you can file a bad-faith lawsuit, you have to send the carrier a Civil Remedy Notice through the Florida Department of Financial Services and give it 60 days to fix the problem. The Civil Remedy Notice is itself a useful tool — sometimes the carrier moves the file once it lands.
Florida Statute 95.11(4)(a) — the new two-year statute of limitations. In March 2023, the Florida Legislature cut the deadline for filing a negligence lawsuit from four years to two. That includes most car wreck, slip-and-fall, and other personal injury cases. If your insurance dispute is tied to an underlying injury, that two-year clock is ticking from the date of the wreck or fall, not from the date the carrier denied your claim. I have seen good cases die on this deadline. Do not wait.
Florida Statute 627.736 — PIP, the $10,000 no-fault medical bucket. Personal Injury Protection is the first place auto-related medical bills get paid in Florida, regardless of fault, up to $10,000. PIP claims are also the place where a lot of slow-pay problems show up. The statute has its own 30-day payment rule for properly submitted bills, and if the carrier blows it, attorney’s fees can attach.
Florida Statute 627.727 — Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage. UM and UIM is the coverage that protects you when the person who hit you did not carry enough insurance to make you whole. It is your own carrier’s policy paying out, and the carrier’s response to a UM claim is often where a “they’re on your side” insurance company turns into an adversary overnight.
Florida Statute 768.81 — modified comparative negligence. The 2023 reform also rewrote how fault gets divided. If a jury decides you were more than 50 percent at fault for the wreck or fall, you recover nothing. In plain English: if you are 51 percent to blame and the other side is 49 percent, you go home with zero. That rule is one reason carriers now push so hard on comparative-fault arguments in the claim file. They have more grounds to pursue a low offer than they did before.
Seven claim-handling patterns that show up in our Lee and Collier County files
When a Bonita Springs or Fort Myers caller reaches our office and says “the insurance company is treating me badly,” the underlying facts almost always fall into one of these patterns:
- The flat denial with no real investigation. A letter goes out, often within days of the claim, citing a policy exclusion that does not actually apply or a coverage gap that does not actually exist. We have unwound denials by simply reading the policy back to the adjuster.
- The slow-walked claim. Bills sit. Calls go unreturned. The adjuster transfers, and the file starts over. This is the most common version, and it works for the carrier because policyholders give up.
- The lowball with a deadline. An offer comes in at a fraction of the medical bills, with a 14-day or 30-day “this offer expires” note attached. The pressure is the point.
- The recorded statement trap. The adjuster wants you on tape early, before you know the full extent of your injuries, and uses any inconsistency later to cut the value of the claim.
- The independent medical examination shopped to a known defense doctor. The carrier sends you to a physician who writes the same report for every plaintiff. We watch for these.
- The PIP exhaust ambush. Bills are run through PIP in an order that exhausts the $10,000 before the most serious treatment is paid, leaving the client holding the bag.
- The UM denial against the carrier’s own insured. Your own company refuses to step up after an underinsured at-fault driver totals your car on I-75 or US-41. This one stings the most because the relationship was supposed to be different.
What makes bad-faith litigation harder than a straight negligence case
People assume a bad-faith case is straightforward once the bad behavior is obvious. It is not. The carrier’s defense is almost always that its conduct was reasonable under the circumstances, and the case turns on what was in the claim file, when, and what the adjuster did with it. We pull the entire claim file, including the adjuster’s notes, supervisor reviews, and reserves history. We line up the dates against the statute. We compare what the adjuster said in writing to what the adjuster told the policyholder on the phone. Patterns emerge.
The 2023 modified-comparative rule makes the underlying case harder too. If the carrier can credibly argue that the injured client carries more than half the fault, the recovery zeroes out. That argument now shows up in claim files where it never used to, because the carrier knows it has a real path to paying nothing. The answer is to develop the liability evidence early — police reports, body-cam footage, surveillance from nearby businesses on US-41 or Tamiami Trail, and a reconstruction engineer where the facts justify it.
And the two-year statute is unforgiving. We have turned away cases at the door because the caller waited 25 months. The carrier’s slow walk through year one and year two is sometimes a feature, not a bug.
What to do if your insurance company is mishandling your claim
The action list below is built from things I have actually watched move a claim file. None of it is generic.
- Get every denial or coverage decision in writing, and ask the adjuster to cite the policy language. Adjusters say things on the phone that they will not put in writing. A written denial that points to the wrong policy provision is, by itself, sometimes enough to flip the file.
- Keep a single timeline document. Date, who called, what was said, what was promised. I have used this approach with clients in Estero and Cape Coral and watched the same adjusters who claimed “we never said that” walk back the denial when the dated entries came out.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver’s carrier without talking to a lawyer first. Your own carrier you may be contractually required to talk to. The other side, you are not.
- If a Civil Remedy Notice is warranted, file it. The Florida Department of Financial Services maintains the form. The 60-day clock that starts running is often the first time a slow-walked file gets supervisor attention.
- Watch the two-year statute, hard. Mark it on a calendar. Mark it again. If you are within six months of the deadline and the claim is not resolved, talk to a lawyer that week.
- Save the photographs, the gear, the damaged property, and the bills. Carriers settle higher when the documentation is in front of them. The cases we recover the most on are the ones where the client kept everything.
Key Takeaways
- Claims handling has been Florida’s #1 consumer complaint category for years running, and the pattern is the same across major carriers — not a coincidence.
- Florida Statute 624.155 is the bad-faith statute, and a Civil Remedy Notice filed through the Florida Department of Financial Services starts a 60-day clock that often moves a file on its own.
- The 2023 reform cut the negligence statute of limitations in half, from four years to two, under Florida Statute 95.11(4)(a). Carriers know this. Most policyholders do not.
- Florida is now a modified comparative negligence state. If a jury puts you at more than 50 percent fault, you recover nothing. That rule is showing up in claim files in ways it never used to.
- Documentation is the single best tool a policyholder has. A dated timeline, written denials, and saved bills move more carriers than anger does.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a bad-faith claim practice in Florida?
Under Florida Statute 624.155, bad faith covers failure to settle when the insurer could and should have, unreasonable delay, misrepresentation of policy provisions, and failure to investigate. You generally have to file a Civil Remedy Notice with the Florida Department of Financial Services and give the insurer 60 days to cure before suing for bad faith.
How long do I have to take action after my claim is mishandled?
For an underlying negligence claim, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of the injury under Florida Statute 95.11(4)(a), after the 2023 reform that shortened it from four years. Bad-faith and breach-of-contract deadlines run separately. The short answer is do not wait.
My claim was denied. Do I have to accept that decision?
No. You can ask for the denial in writing with the policy provision the insurer is relying on, request a re-review, file a complaint with the Florida Department of Financial Services, and, if the denial is wrong on the law or the facts, sue. Most denied claims our office reviews have at least one issue that gives the policyholder a stronger position.
Can the insurance company lowball me and get away with it?
If an insurer offers a settlement that does not fairly value the claim and refuses to budge with proof in front of them, that conduct can support a bad-faith claim under Florida Statute 624.155. The point of the statute is that an insurer owes a duty of good faith to its own insured, and lowballing without justification is a breach of that duty.
Do I need a lawyer to fight an insurance company in Florida?
You are not required to have one, but the playing field is uneven. Carriers have in-house counsel, adjusters, and engineering witnesses on retainer. We work these cases on contingency, so there is no fee unless we recover. Call 239-992-8259 and we will give you a straight read on whether the file is worth pursuing.
Talk to Pittman Law Firm
If a Florida carrier is slow-walking your claim, denying coverage that should be there, or pressuring you into a number that does not match the bills, our office will give you a straight read on where the file stands and what your options look like. I have handled these cases out of our Bonita Springs office for three decades, and we work on contingency. There is no fee unless we recover for you. Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation, or reach us through the contact page.
About the Author
For more than thirty years, David B. Pittman, Esq. has handled personal injury cases out of the firm he founded, Pittman Law Firm, P.L., with a sustained focus across Southwest Florida. The firm represents injured clients across Lee and Collier Counties, from the firm’s main office at Windsor Place on Bonita Beach Road through Fort Myers, Naples, Estero, Cape Coral, and Lehigh Acres, with a particular focus on insurance-coverage and serious-injury cases.
David’s undergraduate years were at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina; his legal education at the University of South Carolina School of Law. AV-Preeminent at Martindale-Hubbell; member of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
David has held a Florida real estate broker license for twenty-five years, a credential that shapes how the firm reads the property side of premises cases. The firm handles personal injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, serving Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Coral, Estero, and Lehigh Acres, with offices at Windsor Place in Bonita Springs (main) and Fort Myers (satellite). Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation.
The information on this page is general in nature and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Pittman Law Firm, P.L. Every case turns on its own facts, and outcomes described here are specific to those matters and not a prediction of result in any other case. Attorney advertising — David B. Pittman, Esq., is responsible for this content. Pittman Law Firm, P.L., 3525 Bonita Beach Rd, Suite 107, Bonita Springs, FL 34134.