State legal
Florida's Presuit Notice Turns on the Day the Policy Was Issued, Not the Day You Sue
Both sides agreed the case turned on April 24, 2019. What the Court did with that date closes a split that had run across six appellate districts since 2023.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
In short
The Florida Supreme Court held on October 22, 2026 that section 627.70152's presuit notice of intent to initiate litigation does not apply to a policy issued before the statute's July 1, 2021 effective date. The controlling date is the date the policy was issued, not the date of loss and not the date suit is filed. The decision approves the Sixth District in Hughes and expressly disapproves the Fourth District in Cole.
Run the Florida clocks on your file.
Enter the dates you know. Clocks without a date show what starts them.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70132
Notice of new or reopened claim (bar)Hard deadline
One year from the date of loss. For wind events the date of loss is the landfall date, or the date NOAA verifies the weather event for non-named storms.
The penalty for missing the window is total: the claim is barred. The one-year window applies to policies issued or renewed after December 16, 2022 (SB 2-A); older policies carried two years.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70132
Supplemental claim notice (bar)Hard deadline
18 months from the date of loss for extra damage discovered after the original file was adjusted.
Same statute, same class of bar as the one-year notice window.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70131
Acknowledge the claim communicationCarrier clock
7 calendar days from the carrier's receipt of a claim communication.
Documented in § 627.70131; systemic failure is Office of Insurance Regulation exposure.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70131
Begin the investigationCarrier clock
7 days from the carrier's receipt of the written proof of loss.
Without a documented proof of loss, the carrier's statutory clock arguably has not started. Investigation delay is a documented bad-faith data point.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70131
Physically inspect the propertyCarrier clock
30 days from the carrier's receipt of the written proof of loss.
Inspection delay is a documented bad-faith data point.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70131
Pay or deny in writingCarrier clock
60 days from the carrier's receipt of notice of the claim.
From day 61, statutory interest accrues on any unpaid covered amount.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70131
Issue settlement paymentCarrier clock
20 days from a reached settlement or a signed release.
A late settlement check is a separate violation.
- —Fla. Stat. § 627.70152
Pre-suit notice of intentHard deadline
Served on the Department of Financial Services at least 10 business days before filing suit, and only after the carrier has issued a coverage determination.
The carrier then has 10 business days to respond with an offer, an appraisal demand, or a reinspection right (reinspection runs another 14 business days). The itemized damages, fees, and costs must match the demand figures.
- —HB 837
Carrier bad-faith safe harborContext
90 days from the carrier's receipt of evidence sufficient to support the claim amount.
If the carrier tenders the lesser of policy limits or the demand amount inside the window, no statutory or common-law bad-faith claim can be brought on that conduct.
- —Per the field guide's HB 837 discussion
Bad-faith statute of limitationsContext
Five years, and the clock does not start until the underlying coverage claim is resolved.
HB 837's two-year general-negligence limitations period does not apply to first-party bad faith.
Computed from the claimOS field guide for this state. Clocks the guide states as plain days are counted as calendar days; business days are counted as weekdays. Informational, not legal advice. Verify against the current statute and policy language.
Universal Property & Casualty and Rebecca Hughes agreed on exactly one thing at the Florida Supreme Court: the date that decides the case is April 24, 2019, the day her homeowners policy was issued. Not May 29, 2019, when she reported the water damage. Not August 4, 2021, when she sued. On October 22 the Court took that stipulation and turned it into the rule for every pre-2021 policy in the state.1
Section 627.70152 has been the carrier bar's cheapest dismissal since July 1, 2021. A claimant who files suit without first sending the Department of Financial Services a notice of intent to initiate litigation gets dismissed without prejudice, because subsection (5) says a court "must" dismiss.2 For five years, whether that applied to a policy sold before the statute existed depended on which appellate district the courthouse sat in.
Which date on the dec page
The Court recorded the agreement in one line: "The parties agree that the operative date for analyzing the statute at issue is April 24, 2019, the date on which the policy was issued."1 Having conceded that, Universal was in the position of admitting it sought to apply a 2021 statute to a 2019 contract, which is the definition of retroactive application and the reason the two-step test from Menendez v. Progressive Express Insurance Co. came into play at all.
Read the dates in order, because the arithmetic carries the argument. Hughes bought a one-year term running April 24, 2019 to April 24, 2020. She reported water damage on May 29, 2019, thirty-five days into the term. Universal reviewed it, paid something, and she came back with three contractor bids asking for more. The policy period ran out on April 24, 2020. Section 627.70152 took effect 433 days later. She filed suit 34 days after that.
Her policy had been expired for more than a year when the statute she supposedly violated took effect.
For a public adjuster the operational content of that sequence is narrow and useful: the controlling date lives on the declarations page, and it is the inception date of the term in force at the loss. Not the date of loss. Not the date the carrier closed the file, and not the "date prepared" that some dec pages print in the corner. On a Florida file with a loss in 2019 or 2020, that date is almost certainly before July 1, 2021, and the presuit notice the carrier has been treating as a condition precedent is not one.
Why "all suits" was never a command
The Fourth District had read subsection (1) as the retroactivity trigger. The statute "applies exclusively to all suits not brought by an assignee arising under a residential or commercial property insurance policy," and Cole v. Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co. reasoned that if the Legislature had wanted to limit the notice duty to policies issued after the effective date, it would have said so.1
The Supreme Court rejected the inference and said why in a sentence it borrowed from the Sixth District: "clear evidence must consist of more than silence."1 Subsection (1) sorts cases by type — residential or commercial property policies, assignees excluded — and the phrase "all suits" does that sorting work without reaching backward in time. The Court also pointed at the statute's own effective date as evidence running the other way, citing Florida Insurance Guaranty Association v. Devon Neighborhood Association for the proposition that including an effective date rebuts an intent to apply a law retroactively.1
Then Universal argued the notice requirement was merely procedural, which would have taken Menendez off the table entirely. The Court looked at what subsection (5) and the now-repealed subsection (8)(b) actually did to a claimant: dismissal for noncompliance, a bar on fees incurred before dismissal, a safe harbor and extra time for the insurer, and a delay in the right to sue at all. A statute with those four effects alters rights whatever it is called.
Justice Tanenbaum, concurring, pointed out that none of this analysis was necessary. Section 624.21 has been on the books since 1982 and reads in full: "Each amendment to this code shall be construed to operate prospectively, unless a contrary legislative intent is specified."3 Section 627.70152 is an amendment to the insurance code. The Legislature specified no contrary intent. On that reading the retroactivity question answers itself without reaching Menendez at all, and the concurrence is the shorter brief to hand a judge who wants one.
Six districts, two answers
Two districts had read it the other way.
The split Hughes closes was not a two-case disagreement. Every district except the Fourth and Third had come down prospective-only, and the Court's opinion walks the lineup.
| District | Decision | Held | After Hughes |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Priest v. State Farm Fla. Ins. Co., No. 1D2024-1577 (May 20, 2026) | Prospective only | Consistent |
| Second | Buis v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 394 So. 3d 738 (2024) | Prospective only | Quoted with approval |
| Third | Cantens v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's London, 388 So. 3d 242 (2024) | Retroactive | Superseded |
| Fourth | Cole v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 363 So. 3d 1089 (2023) | Retroactive | Expressly disapproved |
| Fifth | Smith v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 396 So. 3d 860 (2024) | Prospective only | Consistent |
| Sixth | Hughes v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 374 So. 3d 900 (2023) | Prospective only | Approved |
The disposition matters more than the tally. The Court wrote that it "approve[s] the decision of the Sixth District in Hughes to the extent it is consistent with this decision" and that it "disapprove[s] the decision of the Fourth District in Cole."1 Disapproval is not distinguishing. A Broward or Palm Beach trial judge who has been dismissing pre-2021 suits on Cole has had the authority for doing so removed, and the Third District's Cantens goes with it. The practical reach of this is Fourth and Third District files, which is Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward, Palm Beach, and the Treasure Coast.
The briefing says who thought a notice form was worth the trip. Appearing for Universal were the Florida Justice Reform Institute, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida, and the Federal Association for Insurance Reform. Appearing for Hughes were United Policyholders, a Miami condominium association, and the American Adjuster Association.1 Five industry organizations on one side of a procedural question, and on the other a trade association of adjusters that evidently understood the dismissal rate on older files as its own problem. Adjuster-side amicus participation in a Florida coverage case is rare enough to be worth logging.
The version of the statute the Court construed is also not the version in the current books. Subsection (8)'s fee provisions were repealed in 2022, and subsection (1) now runs without the "not brought by an assignee" clause while adding eligible surplus lines insurers.2 A carrier arguing the "merely procedural" point today is arguing from a thinner statute than the one the Court just examined.
What the opinion does not decide
The last line before the concurrence reads: "NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED."1 A rehearing motion would not likely change a six-justice result, but the window is open as of this writing, and a judge asked to act on Hughes this week is entitled to say so.
Renewals are the gap that will matter most in the field, and the opinion does not touch them. Hughes had a single one-year term issued before the statute and expiring before it. A 2020 policy renewed in August 2021 presents a different question, because Florida generally treats a renewal as a new contract, and a new contract issued after July 1, 2021 would carry the notice duty on its own terms. Nothing in Hughes resolves that, and the honest posture on a renewed file is that the issue is open rather than won.
Other things survive untouched. The decision says nothing about whether Universal underpaid the claim — the Court said so directly. It does not disturb the insurer's coverage-determination clock under § 627.70131, which subsection (3)(a) still ties the notice to. And it has no effect on the separate civil remedy notice under § 624.155 for a bad-faith action, or on the policy's own conditions, which is where the suit-limitation period and the sworn proof of loss live. Reading Hughes as clearing a pre-2021 file of every precondition would be the wrong lesson from an opinion about one statute.
None of this reaches a post-2021 file, where the notice is a live condition precedent and the useful question is what serving it buys. Subsection (4) obliges the insurer to answer in writing. If it had already denied coverage, it must accept coverage, continue to deny, or assert a right to reinspect the property. If it had not denied outright, it must make a settlement offer or demand alternative dispute resolution. Appraisal tolls the limitations period through the close of the 90-day window after the notice, after which suit may be filed without serving another one.1 On a 2022-or-later policy the notice is the instrument that forces a written carrier position onto a dated record, which is a different thing from a hurdle and should be worked that way.
The file work this week
Pull the declarations page on every open Florida file and write the term inception date into the claim log. If the loss sits inside a term that began before July 1, 2021, the file is in Hughes territory, and that fact belongs in the log with the dec page attached rather than discovered later by counsel. Where a renewal happened after July 1, 2021, log the full renewal history instead of a single date, because the renewal question is the one still live.
Date arithmetic is cheap to document and hard to argue with.
Carriers using the notice as a stall on older files will take a few weeks to adjust, and the useful move is documentary rather than argumentative: a short record in the file that the policy was issued on a stated date, that the term in force at the loss predates the statute, and that Hughes approves the Sixth District on precisely that point. Date arithmetic persuades an adjuster the way a legal argument never does, which is the same reason New Jersey's suit clock runs from the fire rather than the denial and Arizona interest runs from the day the claim arrived. When a fee exposure is what the carrier is actually protecting, the Florida fee rules sit one layer down, and which check a commission attaches to is a separate fight from this one.
Does Florida presuit notice apply to my pre-2021 policy?
No. The Florida Supreme Court held on October 22, 2026 that § 627.70152 does not apply to a policy issued before the statute took effect on July 1, 2021. The controlling date is the date the policy was issued, not the date of loss and not the date suit is filed.
Which date on the declarations page controls?
The inception date of the policy term that was in force at the time of the loss. In Hughes that was April 24, 2019, and both parties stipulated to it. A "date prepared" or a reissue stamp is not the operative date.
What happens to a policy renewed after July 1, 2021?
It depends, and Hughes does not answer it. Florida generally treats a renewal as a new contract, so a renewal issued after the effective date may well carry the notice duty. Treat a renewed file as an open question rather than a settled one.
Is a pending motion to dismiss under 627.70152 now dead?
For a pre-July-2021 policy, the legal basis for it is gone, and Cole was expressly disapproved rather than distinguished. The opinion is not final until the rehearing window closes, so counsel may need to flag that status when raising it.
Does this change the bad-faith civil remedy notice?
No. The civil remedy notice under § 624.155 is a separate filing with its own requirements, and Hughes addresses only § 627.70152. The policy conditions, including the suit limitation period and the sworn proof of loss, are also unaffected.
Sources cited
- Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Hughes, No. SC2024-0025 (Fla. Oct. 22, 2026)— Supreme Court of Florida
- § 627.70152, Fla. Stat. — Suits arising under a property insurance policy— The Florida Legislature, Online Sunshine
- § 624.21, Fla. Stat. — Prospective operation of amendments to code— The Florida Legislature, Online Sunshine
- Hughes v. Universal Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 374 So. 3d 900 (Fla. 6th DCA 2023)— Sixth District Court of Appeal of Florida
Statutory clocks, tracked on every file.
claimOS calendars these deadlines automatically on each claim: acknowledgement, decision, payment, and the suit limitation, each with its code section attached and visible to the whole team.