The number of litigated property insurance claims at Florida’s largest P&C insurers rose again in the month of April 2022, with the total now back at levels only seen prior to the enactment of the SB76 reforms, according to CaseGlide.CaseGlide CEO Wesley Todd expressed some “hope” that the upcoming Special Session of the legislative, at which property insurance reforms for Florida are set to be discussed, could represent a turning point.Although, , any changes enacted are likely to take time to implement and their effects flow through the local insurance and global reinsurance market.Litigated claims reported by Florida’s largest property and casualty insurers rose 3% for the month of April 2022, with the number of 4,702 continuing a three-month increase in new litigated claims and representing a 42% increase over 2021’s low figure of 3,303 registered in December.

Nine of the 16 largest Florida P&C insurers tracked by CaseGlide showed a month-over-month increase in litigated claims for April.More positively though, for Notices of Intent to Initiate Litigation (NOIs) received by the same insurers, April saw a decrease of 392, or 12%, to 2,799, down from March’s figure of 3,191.April is the first month where NOI’s have decreased since July 2021, so this is going to be an interesting data point to watch going forwards and how that may play into actual litigation counts.

As a result of NOI’s declining, combined new litigated cases and NOIs decreased 3% month-over-month from March’s figures.Wesley Todd, CEO of CaseGlide commented, “We’re hopeful the upcoming Florida legislature’s Special Session can bring relief to the Florida property market.” Todd also explained that, “We’re back to the litigation volume we saw when we first started talking about SB76, and that doesn’t include the substantial amount of notices of intent to litigate on their way to becoming lawsuits.” Assignment of benefits (AOB) cases, as a percentage of total new litigated cases in April, stood at 36%, which is pretty much flat on previous figures.CaseGlide said that, “AOB percentages of new litigation continues to remain higher than at any month in 2021.” Miami-Dade County continues to be the litigated case hub of Florida it seems, representing 23% of new litigated cases in April, followed by Broward County at 16%, Hillsborough County at 8%, and Palm Beach County and Orange County both at 7%.

It’s hard to read too much into a single month of data on this topic, as there are a range of trends that drive spikes in litigation on property insurance claims.But these data points could become incredibly useful if any new reforms are enacted, providing a way to assess how effective they have been.Clearly, with litigated cases back at levels pre the enactment of SB76, that reform has had little effect on the Florida property insurance market.

Market participants will be hoping for much more from the next attempt...

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