News & Events

As you may be aware, the Florida Supreme Court has enacted significant changes to the Rules of Civil Procedure, most of which are effective on January 1, 2025. We are writing to you to advise you of these changes and let you know how we will be complying with the new rules and how they will affect your company and your insureds in the litigated matters you have been kind enough to assign to our office.

Please take note that the Third District recently issued an opinion that may impact how you defend corporate representative depositions in first-party property cases. In the past some of us may have asserted that documents within the claims file are privileged, while at the same time allowing our corporate representative to review those same documents during the deposition to refresh his/her recollection pursuant to a protective order.   

On April 25, 2024, the Florida Supreme Court issued its decision in Allstate Insurance Company, et. al, v. Revival Chiropractic, LLC, SC2022-0735.    More than a year after oral argument, the Court finally and definitively ruled on “Billed Amount” concluding “…the provisions of both the statute and the policy support Allstate’s payment of 80% of the amount of the charges submitted.”  Id.  Although Revival made its way to the Florida Supreme Court by way of certified question posed by the United States Court of Appeal for the Eleventh Circuit, the Billed Amount issue has pervaded Florida state courts and PIP suits for well over half a decade.  As expressed by the Court, “the question for decision is whether the insurer here may pay 80% of a charge submitted by a provider even when that reimbursement amount is less than the amount that would be reimbursable under the limitations of the statutory schedule of maximum charges.”  In no uncertain terms, the Court found the Allstate policy expressly authorized such a payment and nothing in the PIP statute prevented payment in accordance with Allstate’s policy.  

Subrogation is an important legal process by which an insurance company can reduce its financial losses by recovering the costs it paid out for a claim from the responsible party. Maximizing financial recovery and ensuring legal compliance are important goals for insurers. The attorneys at Conroy Simberg can help you provide your clients with timely and accurate evaluations of losses for subrogation and potential recovery, which will help contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of the insurance claims process.

Lawyers have a professional responsibility to uphold the law. The law says that people who are injured by the actions of others have the right to be compensated for their losses. Some of those losses are easy to calculate because they are expenses incurred as a result of an injury. Other compensable losses involve placing a value on the quality of human life, and the amount of compensation can often be as high as a jury can be persuaded to go.