Florida Insurance Council - Covering Florida Since 1962
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Bills to expand the application of Florida’s one way attorney fee statute to suits brought by “contractors” against surety insurers under payment or performance bonds for losses due to breach of a building or construction contract are moving through the legislature this year. SB 1200 and HB 1247 are…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 337 by Rep. Leek (R) increases the jurisdictional threshold for county court, along with other changes to the court system. It passed its second House committee on April 2, 2019. It was not amended. The bill has one committee left. The Senate county court jurisdiction bill…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate omnibus insurance bill (SB 714) cleared its second committee on April 1, 2019 when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved it. A strike all amendment (791632) was adopted by the committee to add numerous issues to the Senate bill to more closely match it with the House…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House omnibus insurance bill cleared its last committee on March 28, 2019 when the House Commerce Committee approved it. Multiple amendments were adopted to HB 301 by the Commerce Committee. The amendments added a significant number of new issues to the bill. Some of the new issues were filed…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 387, a bill dealing with surplus lines, passed the House on March 27, 2019 and will be sent to the Senate for consideration and approval. The bill was initially set for its first floor hearing on March 27th with no vote set to be taken, but the House…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1414 and SB 1416 significantly change the way trade secret information provided to state agencies is protected from the public records law. Both bills unanimously passed their first committee on March 25, 2019. Although Sen. Torres (D) expressed concerns about the bills, he voted for them anyway.…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Sen. Wright, the sponsor of this year’s construction defects bill, asked that the bill be temporarily postponed by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the second week in a row. He wants to work on finding a compromise with the stakeholders over the interim. Thus, the bill is not…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House dangerous instrumentality bill which the bill sponsor describes as a “balanced bill” for all sides is teed up for the House floor. It passed its last committee on March 21, 2019 with a 12-4 vote. It was amended to more closely match the Senate companion, SB…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel HB 337 by Rep. Leek (R) increases the jurisdictional threshold for county court, along with other changes to the court system. It passed its first House committee on March 20, 2019 with a strike all amendment that rewrote the bill. The bill has two committees left. The bill increasing…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A tort reform bill dealing with the dangerous instrumentality doctrine moved out of its first Senate committee on March 18, 2019 with one amendment. The bill pits business groups against the trial bar and is in response to a 2018 Florida Supreme Court decision which expanded the dangerous instrumentality…