By Steven M. Katzman

The roof of a Broward County warehouse opens up in a storm. Water gets into the racking, the inventory, and eventually the drywall and the electrical. The business shuts down for eleven weeks. The owner reports the claim, the carrier sends an adjuster, and four months later a check arrives for $180,000 against a documented loss north of $2 million — with a reservation of rights letter, a request for an examination under oath, and a demand for five years of tax returns attached.

Ten years ago that was a familiar problem with a familiar answer: hire counsel, sue the carrier, and the fee statute made the case economically viable no matter the size of the claim. That answer no longer exists. Between 2021 and 2023 the Florida Legislature rebuilt first-party property insurance litigation from the foundation up — a shorter deadline to report the loss, a mandatory pre-suit notice with a statutory dismissal attached, a ban on assigning benefits, and the outright repeal of the one-way attorney’s fee statute that made these cases possible for a generation.

Commercial policyholders were swept into nearly all of it. Most of the public commentary focused on homeowners, which is exactly why so many business owners are operating on rules that were repealed years ago. This article covers what actually applies to a Florida commercial property claim today, in the order the deadlines arrive.

The deadline that ends most claims: one year, not five

Start here, because this is the one that quietly kills otherwise good claims.

Under Fla. Stat. § 627.70132, a claim or reopened claim under a policy providing property insurance for loss caused by any peril is barred unless notice was given to the insurer within one year after the date of loss. A supplemental claim — additional loss or damage from the same peril on a claim the insurer already adjusted, or costs discovered while completing repairs — is barred unless notice was given within 18 months of the date of loss.

Three things about that statute catch businesses off guard.

It is not limited to hurricanes. The earlier version of the statute was a windstorm and hurricane provision. It now reaches any peril — a pipe burst, a fire, a theft, a roof failure on a clear day.

One year is the outside limit, not the deadline. The statute bars the claim after a year. The policy almost always requires “prompt notice,” and Florida carriers litigate that provision aggressively. Late notice creates a presumption of prejudice to the insurer, which the insured then has to rebut. A notice given at month eleven may satisfy § 627.70132 and still lose on the policy’s own notice condition.

The supplemental-claim window is the trap for phased losses. Commercial losses reveal themselves slowly. Hidden moisture behind a wall, a compressor that fails four months after a surge, structural damage found when the drop ceiling comes down — these are supplemental claims, and the clock on them runs from the original date of loss, not from discovery. An owner who accepted a modest payment in month three and discovers the real damage in month twenty has no supplemental claim, no matter how meritorious.

That is separate from the deadline to sue. An action on a property insurance policy carries a five-year limitations period under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(2)(e), and it runs from the date of loss rather than from the denial. So the sequence in a Florida commercial claim is: report within one year, supplement within eighteen months, sue within five years of the loss itself.

What the policy requires before any statute matters

Coverage litigation is won and lost on the post-loss conditions, and carriers in this market enforce them. A commercial property policy will require the insured to give prompt notice, protect the property from further damage, keep an accurate record of emergency expenses, produce a sworn proof of loss on request, submit to an examination under oath, and produce financial records.

Two of those deserve attention.

The examination under oath is not a deposition. It is a policy condition and a condition precedent to coverage. There is no judge, the rules of evidence do not apply, and the carrier’s counsel can go essentially anywhere — prior losses, financial condition, the circumstances of the loss, the accuracy of every number submitted. Refusing an EUO, or appearing unprepared and producing testimony that conflicts with the claim documents, is one of the most reliable ways to lose a commercial claim outright.

Concealment and fraud provisions void the entire policy. Not the disputed line item — the policy. An inflated inventory figure or an invoice for work that was never done converts a coverage dispute into a rescission case, and Florida carriers plead it routinely. Every number submitted to a carrier should be one the business can document and defend.

Preserve the evidence. The damaged roof section, the failed valve, the burned panel, the ruined inventory. If a repair has to happen for the business to reopen, photograph and video everything first, keep the removed components, and give the carrier a documented opportunity to inspect. Spoliation is as fatal in a first-party coverage case as it is in the product liability context.

The insurer’s own deadlines

The obligations run both directions, and the dates are worth tracking because they build the record for everything that follows.

Fla. Stat. § 627.70131 requires the insurer to:

Acknowledge a communication regarding a claim within 7 calendar days, unless payment is made in that period;
Begin investigating within 7 business days after receiving proof-of-loss statements;
Physically inspect the property, if an inspection is needed, within 30 days after the proof-of-loss statements are received; and
Pay or deny the claim, in whole or in part, within 60 days after notice of the claim, subject to narrow exceptions for factors genuinely beyond the insurer’s control.

Payment made after the 60-day mark bears interest from the date the insurer received notice of the claim, at the rate set under Fla. Stat. § 55.03.

These are not fee-generating provisions anymore, and a violation is not a private cause of action. What they are is a timeline. A claim file showing a missed inspection deadline, a determination that arrived on day 140, and an adjuster who never returned to the property after the first visit is the raw material for both a Civil Remedy Notice and a persuasive case at trial.

The pre-suit notice is mandatory, and skipping it gets the case dismissed

This is the procedural requirement most commonly missed by lawyers who do not practice in this area regularly.

Fla. Stat. § 627.70152 applies to all suits arising under a residential or commercial property insurance policy, including policies issued by an eligible surplus lines insurer — which matters enormously in Florida commercial property, where a large share of coastal and high-value risk sits in the surplus lines market.

As a condition precedent to filing suit, the claimant must serve a written notice of intent to initiate litigation on a form provided by the Department of Financial Services, at least 10 business days before filing, and not before the insurer has made a coverage determination under § 627.70131. The notice must specify the acts or omissions alleged, the disputed amount, the pre-suit settlement demand, and the attorney’s fees and costs incurred, and it must be supported by an itemized estimate of the amounts in dispute.

The insurer then has 10 business days to respond in writing. Where the allegation is something other than a denial of coverage, the insurer must respond by making a settlement offer or by requiring the claimant to participate in appraisal or another form of alternative dispute resolution.

Three consequences follow:

Non-compliance is fatal to the filing. A court must dismiss without prejudice any suit relating to a claim for which the required notice was not given. On a loss approaching the five-year mark under § 95.11(2)(e), “without prejudice” can be indistinguishable from “with prejudice.”

The statute tolls the limitations period. The time limits in § 95.11 are tolled while appraisal or other alternative dispute resolution is ongoing, where those limits would otherwise expire during the process.

The carrier cannot stall indefinitely. If appraisal or ADR has not concluded within 90 days after the 10-day notice period expires, the claimant may file suit immediately without further notice.

Practically, the notice is the single most consequential document in a commercial property claim. It forces the business to commit to a number, supported by an itemized estimate, before it has taken a deposition or obtained the claim file. Sending it before the estimate and the engineering support are finished is the most common unforced error in these cases.

The economics changed completely: there are no one-way fees

For decades, Fla. Stat. § 627.428 entitled a prevailing insured to attorney’s fees against the carrier, with § 626.9373 doing the same for surplus lines. That is the statute that made it rational to litigate a $200,000 dispute. Senate Bill 2-A, effective December 16, 2022, repealed both for this purpose and stated plainly that there is no right to attorney’s fees under them. The fee provisions that had been built into § 627.70152 went with them.

The 2023 tort reform legislation created Fla. Stat. § 86.121, which awards fees to an insured who obtains a declaratory judgment after a total coverage denial. Business owners hear about that provision and assume it restores the old rule. It does not — and the reason is specific and easy to miss:

§ 86.121 expressly does not apply to any action arising under a residential or commercial property insurance policy; and
even where it does apply, a defense offered under a reservation of rights is not a coverage denial, and the right cannot be assigned.

So for a Florida commercial property claim in 2026, there is no fee-shifting statute. Efforts to restore one have been made and have failed — a 2025 “loser pays” bill for first-party insurance disputes moved through House committees and then died without passage. What remains:

Proposals for settlement under Fla. Stat. § 768.79. This is now the principal fee mechanism in these cases, and it runs both directions. A proposal served and beaten by the required margin shifts fees from the date of service. Carriers understand this better than most policyholders do, and an early, well-calibrated proposal is now a core part of case strategy rather than an afterthought. Our guide to arbitration versus litigation in Florida discusses how forum selection interacts with fee exposure.

Contractual fee provisions. Some manuscript and surplus lines forms contain prevailing-party fee clauses. On a large commercial risk, this is worth reading for before the loss, not after.

The strategic consequence is blunt: the fee award is no longer a substitute for claim value. Cases have to be economically sound on the disputed amount alone, which makes the quality of the estimate and the business interruption calculation the entire ballgame.

Assignment of benefits is prohibited

Under Fla. Stat. § 627.7152, a policyholder may not assign, in whole or in part, any post-loss insurance benefit under any commercial property insurance policy issued on or after January 1, 2023. An attempted assignment is void, invalid, and unenforceable.

For commercial owners this shows up in the emergency services contract. The water mitigation company that arrives at 2 a.m. and hands over a stack of paperwork including a direction-to-pay and an assignment cannot take an assignment of policy benefits on a current policy. The business remains the claimant, the business remains responsible for the vendor’s invoice, and the reasonableness of that invoice becomes part of the claim the business has to prove. Read what gets signed during the emergency, because it is frequently the document that creates the second dispute.

Appraisal: the decision that comes before litigation

Nearly every commercial property policy contains an appraisal clause — a contractual valuation mechanism where each side appoints an appraiser, the two select an umpire, and any two of the three set the amount of loss.

The line that matters is old and consistent: appraisal decides the amount of loss, not coverage. Whether the policy covers the peril, whether an exclusion applies, whether the insured breached a post-loss condition — those are for the court.

What changed is the sequencing. In American Coastal Insurance Co. v. San Marco Villas Condominium Association (Fla. Feb. 1, 2024), the Florida Supreme Court held that a trial court has discretion to compel appraisal before resolving coverage and misrepresentation defenses, where the policy’s retained-rights provision preserves the insurer’s ability to contest coverage afterward. Appraisal first, coverage later, is now an available path — and it can be ordered over a party’s objection.

That makes appraisal a genuine strategic decision rather than a formality:

Appraisal tends to favor the insured where coverage is not seriously disputed and the fight is purely about scope and price. It is faster, cheaper, and does not require proving the carrier did anything wrong. In a world without one-way fees, that cost differential is decisive on mid-size claims.

Appraisal tends to favor the insurer where the real dispute is causation — wear and tear versus storm, pre-existing versus new, long-term seepage versus sudden discharge — because appraisers routinely make causation calls dressed as valuation, and those determinations are hard to unwind.

The right can be waived by conduct inconsistent with it, most often by actively litigating before invoking it. A party that wants appraisal should demand it early and in writing.

Business interruption usually is not in it. Many appraisal clauses reach direct physical damage only. Read the clause before assuming the time-element loss is going to be resolved there.

Business interruption: where the real money is, and the real proof problem

On most commercial claims, the building is the smaller number. Time-element coverage — business income, extra expense, contingent business interruption, civil authority — is where the dispute lives, and it is where claims are most often underpaid, because it is the part carriers can dispute with a spreadsheet.

The recurring fights:

The period of restoration. Policies measure business income loss over the time it should take to repair or replace with reasonable speed — not the time it actually took. Permitting delays, supply chain problems, and contractor availability get litigated here constantly. Document every delay and its cause contemporaneously.

Net income, not gross revenue. The measure is lost net income plus continuing normal operating expenses, including payroll to the extent covered. Businesses consistently overstate this by claiming revenue and understating avoided costs.

Extra expense versus expense to reduce loss. Temporary space, expedited shipping, equipment rental, overtime — these are often covered, sometimes under a separate limit, and frequently recoverable only to the extent they actually reduce the income loss. The distinction changes the number materially.

Civil authority and dependent property. Coverage triggered by a government order denying access, or by damage to a supplier or anchor tenant rather than to the insured premises, has its own triggers, radius requirements, and waiting periods. These are read narrowly.

The waiting period. Most forms include a deductible measured in hours or days before business income coverage begins.

Proving the number is the same exercise as proving lost profits in any commercial case: the reasonable certainty standard, a defensible methodology, and financial records that support it — which is why these claims are built with a forensic accountant from the start, not after the denial. Our guide to proving business damages in Florida covers the methodology, and it is the same analysis a court will apply here.

What is left of first-party bad faith

A carrier that handles a claim badly can still be exposed beyond the policy, but the path is narrow and the 2023 amendments narrowed it further.

Fla. Stat. § 624.155 provides the first-party statutory bad faith remedy. Two structural rules control:

The Civil Remedy Notice. A CRN must be filed with the Department of Financial Services, specifying the statutory provisions violated, the facts, and the policy language at issue. The insurer then has 60 days to cure. A cure within that window forecloses the action. The CRN is a condition precedent, and CRNs get dismissed for being vague — the specificity of the notice is the whole point of the exercise.

Liability and damages come first. Under Blanchard v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 575 So. 2d 1289 (Fla. 1991), a first-party bad faith claim does not accrue until there has been a determination of the insurer’s liability for coverage and the extent of the damages. In practice: win the breach of contract case first, then bring bad faith. A bad faith count filed with the coverage complaint is typically abated, not litigated.

The 2023 reforms added limits that apply across bad faith actions:

Mere negligence alone is insufficient to constitute bad faith — a codification of existing Florida law, now expressly in the statute.
The insured’s own conduct matters. The claimant is required to act in good faith in furnishing information, making demands, and attempting to settle, and a jury may reduce damages for the claimant’s comparative bad faith.
A tender safe harbor. Where the insurer tenders the lesser of the policy limits or the amount demanded within 90 days after receiving actual notice of a claim accompanied by sufficient evidence to support the amount, no bad faith action lies. Failure to tender within that window extends the limitations period by 90 days and is inadmissible on the question of bad faith.

The realistic view: bad faith is leverage and an exposure argument, not a business plan. Cases that actually reach a bad faith judgment involve a documented pattern — an investigation that never happened, a denial that contradicts the carrier’s own engineer, a file note that says the quiet part, a demand within limits that was ignored. Build the claim file record from day one and the question answers itself.

The deadlines, in one place

Under § 627.70132 — the insured’s reporting deadlines:

Notice of claim or reopened claim — 1 year from the date of loss.
Notice of supplemental claim — 18 months from the date of loss.

Under § 627.70131 — the insurer’s handling deadlines:

Acknowledge a communication about the claim — 7 calendar days.
Begin the investigation — 7 business days after the proof-of-loss statements.
Physically inspect the property — 30 days after the proof-of-loss statements.
Pay or deny the claim — 60 days after notice of the claim, with interest running from the date of notice on anything later.

Under § 627.70152 — the pre-suit sequence:

Serve the notice of intent to litigate — at least 10 business days before filing suit, and not before the insurer’s coverage determination.
Insurer’s written response — 10 business days.
Suit permitted despite pending appraisal or ADR — 90 days after the 10-day notice period expires.

Under § 624.155 and § 95.11(2)(e) — the outside limits:

Civil Remedy Notice cure period — 60 days.
Lawsuit on the policy — 5 years from the date of loss.

Policy conditions — prompt notice, proof of loss, EUO — run on their own schedules and are often shorter.

The first thirty days after a commercial loss

Report immediately and in writing. Not at month eleven. Email, with a date.
Mitigate, and document the mitigation. The duty is contractual, and the emergency costs are usually recoverable if they are documented.
Photograph and video everything before anything is repaired or discarded, including what looks undamaged.
Read what you sign during the emergency. Post-loss benefits under a commercial policy issued on or after January 1, 2023, cannot be assigned.
Open a separate general ledger account for the loss on day one. Emergency expense, extra expense, repairs, and the revenue interruption should be traceable without reconstruction a year later.
Retain your own estimator or engineer early. The carrier’s scope becomes the anchor for everything that follows, and it is far easier to displace in week three than in month nine.
Engage a forensic accountant for the business interruption claim. This is the largest number in most commercial losses and the one most often calculated wrong by the insured.
Calendar the one-year and eighteen-month dates the day the loss occurs.
Keep the claim file. Every adjuster’s name, every inspection date, every communication. It is the evidence in both the coverage case and any bad faith claim.
Bring counsel in before the EUO, not after. Testimony given without preparation is the most common self-inflicted wound in a commercial property claim.

Frequently asked questions

My roof was damaged in a storm sixteen months ago and I just found out the damage is much worse than the adjuster said. Can I reopen it? Probably not as a new claim. A reopened claim is barred unless notice was given within one year of the date of loss, and a supplemental claim within 18 months. If you reported the original loss on time and are within the 18-month window, move immediately. If you are outside it, the remaining question is whether what you found is actually part of the timely-noticed claim rather than a supplement to it, which is a fact-specific analysis worth having quickly.

My carrier is a surplus lines insurer. Do these rules apply? The pre-suit notice requirement in § 627.70152 expressly applies to commercial property policies issued by eligible surplus lines insurers. Surplus lines forms are also not filed and approved the way admitted forms are, so the policy language itself may differ significantly — read the actual form rather than assuming standard ISO terms.

Can I recover my attorney’s fees if I win? Not under a fee-shifting insurance statute. Sections 627.428 and 626.9373 were repealed for this purpose, and § 86.121 expressly excludes actions arising under residential or commercial property insurance policies. Fee recovery now depends on a proposal for settlement under § 768.79 or a contractual prevailing-party provision, if the policy has one.

Should I demand appraisal or file suit? It depends on what is actually in dispute. If the carrier accepts coverage and the fight is scope and pricing, appraisal is usually faster and cheaper, and that matters more now that fees do not shift. If the carrier is disputing causation, asserting an exclusion, or claiming a post-loss condition was breached, appraisal may resolve the wrong question. Note that after American Coastal, a court can order appraisal before deciding coverage, so the decision may not be entirely yours.

The carrier sent a reservation of rights letter. Is that a denial? No, and the distinction has teeth. A defense offered under a reservation of rights is expressly not a coverage denial under § 86.121, and a reservation letter also does not start the pre-suit notice process — the notice under § 627.70152 may not be given before the insurer makes a coverage determination under § 627.70131.

The carrier wants an examination under oath and five years of tax returns. Do I have to comply? Almost certainly yes as to the EUO, which is a condition precedent to coverage in nearly every commercial form; refusal is a coverage defense. The scope of the document request is more negotiable, particularly where it reaches material with no connection to the loss. Both should be handled with counsel, and the EUO should be prepared for the way a deposition is prepared for.

How long do I have to sue? Five years from the date of loss under § 95.11(2)(e) — from the loss, not from the denial. That period can be tolled while appraisal or other ADR is ongoing under § 627.70152, but you cannot file at all until the pre-suit notice has been served and the 10-business-day period has run, and a suit filed without that notice must be dismissed.

Can I sue for bad faith? Not at the outset. You need a Civil Remedy Notice, a 60-day cure period, and — under Blanchard — a determination of the insurer’s liability and the extent of damages before a first-party bad faith claim accrues. Mere negligence is not enough, and a timely tender by the insurer within the statutory safe harbor forecloses the claim entirely.

Talk to a Florida commercial litigation attorney

The reforms did not make these claims unwinnable. They made them unforgiving. The one-year notice deadline ends claims before anyone looks at the merits, the pre-suit notice forces the business to commit to a number early and supported, and the repeal of one-way fees means the disputed amount has to carry the case on its own. Every one of those pressures pushes the work earlier — into the estimate, the engineering, the business interruption calculation, and the claim file.

KWBR’s complex commercial litigation, financial damages, and real estate and construction practices represent Florida businesses, property owners, and associations in first-party coverage disputes, appraisals, and bad faith claims from our Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando offices. If your commercial claim has been denied, underpaid, or stalled — or you are approaching a notice deadline — contact us for a confidential review of the policy and the claim file.

This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. Statutes and case law change, and every claim turns on its own policy language and facts; consult a qualified Florida attorney about your situation.

Commercial Property Insurance Disputes in Florida: The One-Year Clock, the Pre-Suit Notice, and the Attorney's Fees That No Longer Exist