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The Governor has now signed the new Tort Reform Act into law effective today, March 24, 2023. The law significantly changes personal injury, wrongful death, attorneys’ fee claims in personal injury protection and first party property insurance claims, as well as insurer bad faith cases in this state. The key points of the bill as signed by Governor DeSantis, are as follows:

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF) has come out with a new study that shows the full extent of insurance fraud in the United States. For the first time in almost three decades, the figure that estimates total losses due to insurance fraud has been updated. According to the CAIF, total losses due to insurance fraud across the country are $308 billion. This figure is dramatically higher than the group’s $80 billion estimate in 1995, which is the last time it released an estimate of the cost of insurance fraud. The study may even underestimate the total amount of insurance fraud because some insurance companies may not realize that they have been defrauded due to sophisticated methods employed by fraudsters.

By some accounts, Hurricane Ian was the third-costliest weather disaster in history. It was also the strongest category 4 hurricane to hit Florida in almost two decades. In the wake of severe weather events like Hurricane Ian, insurance companies face a deluge of claims to process and handle. Insurance companies have a legal right to subrogate, meaning that they have the legal right to seek payment from third parties that bear some or all of the liability for the damage that is the subject of a claim. Oftentimes, when an insurance company subrogates, it is seeking damages from the contractor that built the structure in the first place. Here is what insurance companies need to know when considering whether to subrogate a claim in the wake of a severe weather event like Hurricane Ian.

Orlando workers’ compensation partners, Neil A. Ambekar and Matthew J. Troy will present at the 2023 Florida Bar Workers’ Compensation Forum in Orlando, Florida.