90 Day Safe Harbor: HB 837 CRN Checklist for Florida Bad Faith Claims

Yes, you still have bad faith insurance Florida remedies, but the 2023 reforms narrowed the path. Under Florida Statute §624.155, insurers get a safe harbor period to tender policy limits before bad faith liability attaches for many liability claims. If you suspect your insurer is stalling, gathering evidence and filing a Civil Remedy Notice quickly is no longer optional. It’s the difference between a viable claim and a missed deadline.

TL;DR:
Insurers can avoid bad faith liability by tendering the lesser of policy limits or demanded amount within 90 days of receiving sufficient notice and evidence, effective since March 24, 2023.
Filing a correct Civil Remedy Notice with specific policy and statutory references is essential, as the 60-day cure period is when insurers have a chance to fix violations and prevent liability.
First-party bad faith claims require compliance with the CRN process, while third-party claims often involve litigation over settlement delays that expose insurers to excess judgments.
Evidence such as communication logs, settlement demands, and documentation delays are crucial to proving unreasonable insurer conduct under Florida law, especially after HB 837 reforms.
Damages can include policy limits, excess judgments caused by bad faith, consequential losses, attorney fees, and in rare cases, punitive damages, but claim timing and conduct are critical to success.

What Does Florida Statute §624.155 Cover?

Florida Statute §624.155 gives policyholders and, in many cases, third-party claimants a statutory right to sue an insurer directly for bad faith conduct, separate from any breach-of-contract claim tied to the underlying policy. This is what most people mean when they search for information on Florida bad faith law: a civil remedy created by the legislature, not just a judge-made doctrine.

The statute targets specific conduct, not just a bad outcome. An insurer violates it by failing to settle claims when it could and should have done so under all the circumstances, by unreasonably denying coverage, or by failing to properly investigate a claim in good faith.

Two separate legal tracks exist here, and mixing them up costs people time:

Statutory bad faith under §624.155 applies to both first-party policyholders and third-party claimants and requires the CRN process described later in this article.
Common-law third-party bad faith developed through Florida court decisions and applies mainly when an insurer fails to settle a liability claim within policy limits, exposing its own insured to a judgment above coverage.

The statute also builds in real financial teeth. A prevailing claimant can recover attorney fees under §624.155’s own fee-shifting provision, which survived HB 837 even as the legislature repealed one-way fee statutes elsewhere in Florida insurance law, according to a detailed breakdown of the civil remedy framework. Punitive damages remain available in narrow circumstances, though courts impose strict procedural hurdles before a jury ever sees that question.

The Florida Department of Financial Services sits at the center of the process. Every statutory claim starts with a Civil Remedy Notice filed through DFS, and the agency tracks whether insurers cure the violation within their 60-day window. Skip this filing, or file it wrong, and your statutory claim doesn’t exist yet, no matter how badly your insurer behaved.

How Did HB 837 Change Bad Faith Law in Florida?

HB 837, signed into law as Chapter 2023-15, rewired several pieces of Florida’s bad faith framework, and the changes cut in more than one direction. Some tilt toward insurers. Others actually sharpen what claimants must prove or preserve.

The biggest shift is the 90-day safe harbor. For liability claims, an insurer can now avoid bad faith exposure entirely by tendering the lesser of the policy limits or the amount you demanded, within 90 days of receiving actual notice and sufficient supporting evidence, according to the statutory text of §624.155. Before this reform, insurers who dragged their feet had fewer clean ways to cut off liability once a claim file was fully documented.

The reform changed four core pieces of bad faith practice:

Established the 90-day tender safe harbor for liability claims described above.
Clarified that mere negligence by an insurer, standing alone, is not enough to prove bad faith.
Created a parallel duty: insureds and claimants must also act in good faith, and unreasonable conduct on their end can now reduce a damage award.
Added interpleader and binding arbitration options when multiple third-party claimants would exhaust available policy limits.

Legislative snapshot: The 90-day safe harbor for liability insurers took effect March 24, 2023, under HB 837 (Chapter 2023-15), and applies to claims accruing after that date, according to the House of Representatives staff bill analysis.

That interpleader provision matters more than it sounds. If a bad car accident produces three injured claimants and one liability policy, the insurer can now file an interpleader action or invoke binding arbitration within 90 days to divide limited funds fairly, rather than risk a bad faith suit from whichever claimant got paid last.

First-Party vs. Third-Party Bad Faith: What’s the Difference?

The type of bad faith claim you have depends on who you are in the underlying dispute, and the distinction changes which legal pathway applies.

First-party claims arise when your own insurer mishandles your claim on your own policy, denying a legitimate homeowners claim after a roof leak, or lowballing a hurricane damage estimate. These run through the statutory §624.155 pathway, which means a CRN is mandatory before you can sue.

Third-party claims arise when you’re injured by someone else, and that person’s insurer refuses to settle within policy limits despite clear liability and an offer to settle. These claims blend common-law bad faith doctrine with the statutory framework, and often hinge on whether the insurer had a reasonable opportunity to settle before exposing its own insured to a verdict exceeding coverage.

One more wrinkle: first-party claims frequently carry breach-of-contract elements alongside the bad faith count, since the underlying policy language usually determines whether coverage was owed in the first place.

Filing a Civil Remedy Notice: The 60-Day Cure Process

Getting the Civil Remedy Notice right is often the single highest-leverage step in the entire claim. A well-drafted CRN frequently prompts an insurer to cure the violation and pay rather than risk full bad faith exposure, according to practitioner analysis of the civil remedy statute. A sloppy one gets your case bounced before it starts.

Here’s the sequence:

Draft the CRN with the statutory elements: the specific policy language, the statutory provisions violated, and the facts and circumstances supporting the violation, filed through DFS as required under §624.155.
File with DFS and confirm the notice is logged in the department’s civil remedy database.
Wait out the 60-day cure window. The insurer has 60 days to correct the violation. Your cause of action doesn’t even accrue until that period runs without a cure.
Track the 90-day safe harbor separately if it’s a liability claim. That tender clock runs on its own timeline, from actual notice and sufficient evidence, not from the CRN filing date.
Confirm DFS reporting. Insurers must report the disposition after the cure period closes, creating a paper trail you’ll want later.

Pro Tip: Vague CRNs are the number one reason statutory bad faith claims get dismissed before they ever reach a jury. Cite the exact policy provision and the exact statutory subsection allegedly violated. Generic language like “failed to act in good faith” without specifics gives the insurer, and later a judge, nothing to evaluate.

Our step-by-step guide to filing a bad faith lawsuit walks through CRN drafting in more depth if you want to see sample language before you file.

What Are Common Examples of Bad Faith Insurance Practices?

Courts apply a “totality of the circumstances” test to bad faith claims, meaning no single act automatically proves it, but patterns matter enormously.

Behaviors that show up repeatedly in Florida bad faith litigation include unreasonable delays in investigating or paying a claim, failing to advise an insured about excess exposure when a settlement demand within policy limits is on the table, and inconsistent or shifting reserve amounts that suggest the insurer never intended a fair evaluation. Courts also scrutinize insurers who demand excessive documentation as a delay tactic rather than a genuine investigative need, according to the Florida Bar’s analysis of common bad faith patterns.

Contemporaneous claims-file notes and timely communication records to the insured are often the deciding evidence in these cases, since courts look closely at whether any delay was reasonable given what the insurer actually knew at the time.

Build your own file as you go:

Every letter, email, and claim portal message, with dates.
Written settlement demands and the insurer’s responses, or lack of one.
Medical records, repair estimates, and expert reports tied to your claim.
A simple timeline noting when the insurer received notice versus when it acted.

HB 837 cuts both ways here. Your own communications and conduct now matter more too. If you refused a reasonable request for documentation, or delayed providing information the insurer needed, that can be used to reduce your eventual recovery under the new good-faith duty imposed on claimants.

What Damages Can You Recover in a Bad Faith Claim?

A successful bad faith claim can recover more than the original policy limits. Compensatory damages typically cover the full amount owed under the policy, plus consequential losses caused by the insurer’s misconduct, such as a judgment that exceeded policy limits because the insurer refused a reasonable settlement.

Recovery generally includes:

The underlying claim amount, including sums above the original policy limit when the insurer’s bad faith caused that excess exposure.
Consequential damages tied directly to the delay or denial, such as additional property damage from a slow-walked repair claim.
Attorney fees under §624.155’s fee-shifting provision, which remained intact even as HB 837 stripped one-way fee-shifting elsewhere in Florida insurance law.
Punitive damages, though only in rare cases and only after a claimant clears specific procedural preconditions showing intentional misconduct or gross negligence.

That good-faith duty imposed on insureds and claimants can shrink an award, too. If your own conduct during the claims process was unreasonable, a jury may reduce what you’d otherwise collect. Our guide to comparative fault in Florida explains how similar comparative principles play out in the damages phase of a claim.

Critical Timelines You Cannot Afford to Miss

Florida tightened the clock on negligence claims in 2023, and that change ripples into bad faith litigation strategy.

General negligence statute of limitations dropped from four years to two years for causes of action accruing after HB 837’s effective date, according to the legislative bill analysis.
Your bad faith cause of action doesn’t accrue until the 60-day CRN cure period expires without correction, which effectively tolls the clock on the statutory claim while DFS’s process runs.
The 90-day safe harbor for liability claims runs separately, and if the insurer fails to tender within that window, your bad faith claim can proceed on that specific basis.
File the CRN as early as your claim file supports it. Waiting to see if the insurer “comes around” burns calendar days you may need later.

What Should You Do Right Now If You Suspect Bad Faith?

Acting fast protects both your evidence and your legal deadlines. Here’s the order that actually works:

Preserve every document today, not next month: emails, denial letters, adjuster notes, photos, and your own written timeline of events.
Send a written settlement demand if you haven’t already, and keep proof it was received.
Draft and file your Civil Remedy Notice with the specific statutory and policy provisions cited, then track the 60-day cure clock.
Consider mediation or arbitration if multiple claimants are competing for limited policy proceeds, an option HB 837 formalized for insurers facing that exact situation.
Consult counsel before the cure period runs out, not after, since CRN drafting mistakes are hard to fix once filed.

Pro Tip: Don’t wait for a denial letter to start documenting. If your insurer has gone quiet for weeks with no reserve update or adjuster contact, that silence itself becomes part of your evidence file.

If you’re unsure whether your situation warrants a lawyer, our page on when to get a lawyer breaks down the decision plainly.

Our Take: What Bad Faith Claims Actually Require Now

HB 837 gets described as an insurer-friendly law, and in some respects it is. But the good-faith duty it imposed on claimants cuts against a common assumption that documentation only protects the policyholder. It doesn’t anymore. Your conduct during the claims process is now part of the record a jury will weigh.

What hasn’t changed is what has always separated a strong bad faith claim from a weak one: a precise, well-documented Civil Remedy Notice filed early, and a paper trail that shows exactly when the insurer knew what it knew. At Haddad & Associates, with more than 125 years of combined experience among our attorneys, we build that file before we file anything, because a rushed CRN under the new 90-day and 60-day clocks is often worse than no CRN at all. If you think your claim has been mishandled, a case evaluation costs you nothing and starts the clock working for you instead of against you.

— Haddad & Associates

How Haddad & Associates Can Help With Your Bad Faith Claim

Haddad & Associates is the option Florida policyholders turn to when a claim has stalled and the clock is already running against them. Unlike navigating DFS filings and the CRN process alone, our attorneys handle the drafting, the 60-day cure tracking, and the settlement negotiation while you focus on recovery, not paperwork. We prepare Civil Remedy Notices built around the exact policy language and statutory subsections your claim needs, negotiate directly with insurers who are stalling, and take the matter to litigation when a fair tender doesn’t come within the safe harbor window. Local Florida counsel matters here because these deadlines, the 60-day cure, the 90-day safe harbor, the new two-year negligence clock, don’t forgive guesswork. If your insurer has denied, delayed, or lowballed a legitimate claim, request a free case evaluation and find out where your claim actually stands before another deadline passes.

This article is general information, not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer. Consult a qualified legal professional about your own circumstances before acting on anything here.

Sources

FAQ

What Constitutes a Bad Faith Insurance Claim in Florida?

A bad faith claim arises when an insurer fails to settle a claim it should have settled given all the circumstances, unreasonably denies coverage, or fails to properly investigate, as defined under Florida Statute §624.155. Mere negligence alone no longer meets that bar after HB 837.

How Much Is a Bad Faith Claim Worth?

Value depends on the underlying loss, but recovery can include damages above the original policy limits, consequential losses from the insurer’s delay, and attorney fees under §624.155’s fee-shifting provision. There’s no fixed figure; it turns on your documented losses and the strength of your evidence file.

What Are Three Ways an Insurer Can Be Liable for Bad Faith?

An insurer can face liability by failing to settle a claim within policy limits when it reasonably could have, by failing to properly investigate the claim, or by failing to advise an insured of excess exposure when a within-limits settlement demand exists. Courts weigh these under a totality-of-the-circumstances standard.

Does HB 837 Eliminate Bad Faith Claims in Florida?

No. HB 837 preserves the statutory and common-law bad faith remedies but adds a 90-day tender safe harbor for liability claims and a good-faith duty on claimants that can reduce damage awards. Claims remain viable when properly documented and filed through a Civil Remedy Notice.

How Long Do I Have to File a Bad Faith Claim in Florida?

Your bad faith cause of action doesn’t accrue until the 60-day CRN cure period runs without correction, and related negligence claims now carry a two-year statute of limitations for causes accruing after HB 837’s effective date. Filing your CRN promptly protects both timelines.