After a pointy enhance in January, the variety of new litigated claims in Florida dropped 11% in February for Florida’s largest property insurers, in response to CaseGlide, a litigation monitoring service.
The agency is also now monitoring notices of intent to sue, notices that had been required by Florida Senate Invoice 76 final yr in an effort to scale back spiking claims litigation numbers. NOIs climbed 3% from January to February, CaseGlide discovered. The notices, designed to offer insurers extra time to settle or discover one other path to keep away from litigation, have climbed for the reason that regulation took impact, from 1,311 in July to 2,740 in February.
“As acknowledged final month, we’re nonetheless experiencing some month-to-month volatility with new litigated claims since SB 76 went into impact in June 2021, and we proceed to see NOIs enhance steadily,” stated Wesley Todd, CEO of CaseGlide. “In truth, the quantity of NOIs in February is greater than double the quantity filed in July 2021, the primary month they had been put into use. Due to that, we nonetheless consider that Florida insurers’ litigation publicity is of concern.”
The agency, which additionally makes litigation administration software program, tracks litigation numbers for the 17 largest property insurers within the state. For these carriers, assignment-of-benefits circumstances continued to be an enormous chunk of the litigation, rising barely to 34% of all litigated claims in February, Todd stated. That is the third consecutive month during which AOB circumstances represented greater than 30% of latest litigation, and February posted the very best proportion in additional than 12 months, the agency reported.
General, the variety of new litigated claims fell to to 4,067 in February. The quantity has remained close to the 4,000 mark since SB 76 took impact.
All however one of many 17 insurers confirmed a month-over-month drop in complete litigated claims in February. Fourteen insurers noticed a decline of lower than 25%, whereas two confirmed a 40% lower. It must be famous that one of many insurers that skilled a 40% month-over-month lower turned bancrupt in February, CaseGlide stated.
The corporate didn’t identify the insurer, however St. Johns Insurance coverage Co., as soon as ranked because the eighth-largest in Florida, was declared bancrupt in late February, adopted by the smaller Avatar Property & Casualty Insurance coverage Co. in early March.
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