Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 431 makes numerous changes to Florida’s lien law relating to recovering, towing, or storing motor vehicles. There are two insurance related provisions in the bill. One provision allows an auto lienor or lienor’s agent to charge an administrative fee up to $250 against an insurer insuring the…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 76 makes distracted driving as a primary traffic offense, meaning law enforcement can pull a vehicle over if the driver is seen committing the offense. Driving while distracted is defined to include a number of physical activities which cause driver distractions in addition to the handheld use of…
By: Greenberg Traurig The House Civil Justice Subcommittee met on February 20, 2019 to hear the presentations and discussion on tort reform, medical malpractice reform, and insurer bad faith reform by: Cary Silverman, American Tort Reform Association, Shook, Hardy, & Bacon, Washington, D.C. Bob White, The Doctors Company, Jacksonville, FL David Corum, Insurance Research Council,…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 323, by Rep. Starke (D), passed its first committee on February 13, 2019 by a vote of 11-2. The bill was not amended. The bill prohibits the shops or an employee of the shop to offer customers a rebate, gift, gift card, cash, coupon, or other thing of…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 751, a stand-alone bad faith bill, was filed in the House on February 11, 2019. It applies to first party and third party claims and specifies a new legal process for bad faith claims, with a hearing by an administrative law judge. HB 751 makes all appeals of…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Last week, HB 733 and SB 896 were filed to repeal PIP and replace it with 25/50/10 BI/PD. Neither bill requires Med Pay. There are two primary differences in the bills: the Senate bill repeals PIP on December 31, 2020 which is a year later than the House does…
By: Greenberg Traurig The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee met on January 23rd to consider bill: HB 6003 by Sabatini—Traffic Infraction Detectors. The meeting packet can be found here. Bill Reported Favorably — 12-1 (Rep. Driskell voted no) Overview HB 6003 repeals the traffic infraction detector or red light camera program that was implemented in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Two legal reform provisions are included in the House insurance omnibus bill, HB 301, filed last week by Rep. Santiago (R). Various stakeholders representing the insurance industry are the proponents of the omnibus bill. The Senate companion to the House omnibus bill has not yet been filed. One provision…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Legislation on several auto insurance issues were filed this week. HB 323 deals with auto glass and prohibits motor vehicle repair shops, their employees, or their compensated nonemployees from offering rebates, gifts, gift cards, cash, coupons, or other things of value for making an insurance glass claim. This language…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel On September 20, 2018, in a 4-3 decision, the Florida Supreme Court decided a bad faith case against GEICO (Harvey v. GEICO). In the opinion, the Court reaffirmed its holding in Boston Old Colony v. Gutierrez and Berges v. Infinity Insurance Co., two of the seminal bad faith cases…