JT Law Firm is Fighting for your rights.
The new bill voted into law during the special session held in Tallahassee, FL had one goal – to protect insurance companies.
The average homeowner will have an insurance policy they cannot easily enforce as a result of this bill.
This bill and its supporters successfully removed the rights to homeowners rights to recover their attorney’s fees and costs who succeed in a lawsuit for their claim that is wrongfully denied or underpaid.
The insurance company only paid the plaintiff’s attorney fees if the insurance company lost its case. If the insurance company loses in court, then the insurance company should have done the right thing from the beginning and honored their customer”s valid claim instead of denying or underpaying them for their property damage.
Traditionally, when you hire an attorney to advocate on your behalf in a damage claim and that case goes to court and you win, the insurance company had to pay for your attorney fees.
Attorney fee recovery in this manner is a way to make it attainable for the average homeowner to seek justice when their insurance company wrongs them. It also holds the insurance companies liable for mishandling claims.
Now that the Florida House and Senate passed this bill, it will result in the removal of attorney fee recovery, which will then place the burden of attorney fees on the homeowner. Meaning homeowners would then be punished for the actions of the insurance companies. This bill will result in homeowners paying the attorney fees out of pocket or out of the recovered compensation. Both these options mean homeowners will have less money to repair their homes.
Attorney fee recovery only kicks in when an attorney wins. If the insurance companies have nothing to be sued for, then why are they worried?
This is a screenshot from a damage claim we handled for a client. During our investigation, a whistleblower provided evidence incriminating the insurance company they worked for.
In the screenshot, you can read specific instructions directly stating, “they (the insurance company) are going to be doing denials on all of them.”
In this other screenshot, a desk adjuster inserted false language into a report with the goal of getting the claim denied.
How are these actions acceptable? They happen more than you think.
Clearly, insurance companies have something to be worried about.
Insurance companies are not on your side. This bill and others like it are not designed to help homeowners – their purpose is to help insurance companies make more money at your expense.
Insurance companies lose cases in court often because many of the cases that make it to court should have been handled better from the beginning. As a result, the insurance companies pay the attorney fees for the plaintiff because it’s what makes sense and has been a law for decades in Florida.
This attorney fee recovery structure punishes the insurance companies for not paying homeowners what they were owed from the beginning.
Without this “punishment,” what will stop insurance companies from getting away with their malicious actions? Because if they commit fraudulent activities like the ones depicted in the screenshots above, what will stop them if the law shifts to favor them even more?
Without this “punishment” what will stop insurance companies from getting away with their malicious actions? Because if they commit fraudulent activities like the ones depicted in the screenshots above, what will stop them if the law shifts to favor them even more?
Every homeowner is under attack. Take action now to protect your rights.
Let both your Senator and Representative know you did not support this bill and will not support them if they voted for this bill. This is the only way we stand a chance at winning a favorable outcome for homeowners in the future.
There’s no cost or fee to hire us.
Schedule your complimentary discovery call today. Call us at 855-585-2997.
