Insurer Paid Late? What Florida's 60-Day Bad-Faith Rule | ICA

Written by: Yusuf Nurudeen Ayodele (B.Sc., AAT, ACA (ICAN))

Published: July 17, 2026

Last updated: October 25, 2026

Topic: How Florida's 60-Day Bad-Faith Cure Window Works — and Why an Insurer That Paid $331,930.47 Still Won

Source review: Florida Supreme Court opinion in Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 753 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 2000) (No. SC 93287), 25 Fla. L. Weekly S172, jurisdiction accepted at 728 So. 2d 205 (Fla. 1998); the underlying district court decision, Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 952 F. Supp. 773 (M.D. Fla. 1996) (Glazebrook, Mag. J.); Eleventh Circuit per curiam opinion affirming, No. 97-2327 (11th Cir. May 12, 2000); Florida Statutes §§ 624.155 (notice, cure, tolling and appraisal provisions at (3)(a)–(f); negligence and claimant good-faith provisions at (5)), 624.1551, 624.422, 627.70131, 627.7142 and 55.03; ch. 82-243, Laws of Florida (creating the first-party statutory remedy); CS/CS/HB 837 (2023) and the Legislature's final staff analysis; State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Laforet, 658 So. 2d 55 (Fla. 1995); Boston Old Colony Ins. Co. v. Gutierrez, 386 So. 2d 783 (Fla. 1980); Harvey v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co., 259 So. 3d 1 (Fla. 2018); Brookins v. Goodson, 640 So. 2d 110 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Wood v. Progressive Select Ins. Co., No. 24-13479 (11th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025) (unpublished); Florida Standard Jury Instruction 404.4 and its Notes on Use; Florida Department of Financial Services Civil Remedy portal and Civil Remedy FAQs; and the NAIC Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act model law

Editorial note: General legal information only, not legal advice. The author is a Chartered Accountant, not a licensed U.S. attorney. Consult a Florida-licensed attorney before filing a Civil Remedy Notice.

Late Insurance Payment? Here's How Florida's 60-Day Bad-Faith Rule Really Works

Your insurer finally paid your claim, but only after weeks of silence, delayed calls, and a check that showed up long after you expected it. Now you're wondering: does a late payment mean your insurer acted in bad faith?

 

Florida's 60-day bad-faith rule answers that question — but not in the simple way most people assume. It doesn't punish every late payment, and it doesn't guarantee a payout just because you send a notice. It's a narrow, procedural window built into Florida Statute §624.155, and how it plays out depends heavily on timing.

 

This guide walks through what the 60-day rule actually says, how the process works step by step, and what one real Florida Supreme Court case — Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 753 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 2000), where an insurer paid out $331,930.47 and still ended up in litigation — teaches policyholders about getting the timing right.

Scope note: this guide covers the cure window only; what happens in the 60 days after a Civil Remedy Notice reaches the insurer, and what legally counts as "curing" a violation. It does not cover how to complete the DFS filing itself, how to establish the amount owed when coverage is denied outright, or how third-party excess-judgment liability is proven. Those are separate questions handled elsewhere on this site and linked at the end.

 

What Florida's 60-Day Rule Actually Is

Florida's 60-day bad-faith rule comes from a specific piece of the insurance code: §624.155, Florida Statutes, sometimes called the "civil remedy" statute. In plain terms, it says a policyholder generally can't sue an insurer for bad faith out of nowhere. First, they have to file a Civil Remedy Notice (CRN) with the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS), explaining exactly what the insurer allegedly did wrong. The statute spells out what that notice must contain, right down to "the specific language of the statute" the insurer is said to have violated.

 

A step-by-step walkthrough of the DFS filing itself covers the part the statute doesn't spell out — which form fields courts have treated as mandatory rather than optional, why the facts-and-circumstances narrative should be drafted offline before you ever open the portal, and how the filing number you get on submission becomes your proof of the date every later deadline is measured from.

Once that notice is filed, the insurer gets a window to fix the problem. The statute is direct about what happens if the insurer pays within that window. It states that no bad-faith action "shall lie if, within 60 days after the insurer receives notice from the department...the damages are paid or the circumstances giving rise to the violation are corrected."

 

That 60-day window is often called the "cure period," and it's the heart of the rule. If the insurer pays what's owed under the policy before the clock runs out, the bad-faith claim generally never gets off the ground. If it doesn't, the policyholder may be able to move forward with a lawsuit.

One detail trips people up, and it has changed since Talat was decided. The clock isn't measured from the day you mail anything. Under §624.155(3)(c), no action lies if the damages are paid or the violation corrected "within 60 days after the insurer receives notice from the department" — and §624.155(3)(a) requires DFS to deliver that notice to the email address the insurer has designated under §624.422. Legally, an insurer's "response" means paying what's owed or otherwise correcting the violation inside that window, not simply a phone call or a letter. Anything short of that generally doesn't stop the clock.

Two related deadlines are worth tracking alongside it, and both sit in the same subsection. Under §624.155(3)(e), the applicable statute of limitations is tolled for 60 days after the insurer receives the notice from the department (subparagraph 1), and for a further 60 days after the date appraisal is invoked under paragraph (f) (subparagraph 2). Paragraph (f) itself imposes a filing bar rather than a toll: "A notice required under this subsection may not be filed within 60 days after appraisal is invoked by any party in a residential property insurance claim." Note the limitation — that bar applies to residential property claims, not to every policy type.

 

It helps to think of the 60-day rule less as a punishment and more as a courtesy period, one designed to give insurers a genuine, final chance to make a claim right before a policyholder can escalate to a bad-faith lawsuit, rather than a trap set for them to fall into.

 

Why People Confuse This With A Different 60-Day Rule

 

Here's where a lot of policyholders get tripped up: Florida actually has two separate rules that both involve 60 days, and they're not the same thing. One governs the bad-faith cure window (§624.155). The other, §627.70131, governs how quickly an insurer must acknowledge, investigate, and pay or deny a property claim in the first place — completely separate from any bad-faith notice. 

That statute gives the insurer 7 calendar days to acknowledge a claim communication, 7 days after proof of loss to begin investigating, 30 days to complete a physical inspection, and 60 days to pay or deny. It also adds a detail worth knowing: a payment made after that 60-day mark accrues interest at the §55.03 rate running back to the date the insurer received notice of the claim. The same statute states plainly that failure to comply "does not form the sole basis for a private cause of action," which is exactly why a missed payment deadline is evidence and not a claim.

 

Rule	Statute	What It Governs	When the Clock Starts
CRN Cure Window	§ 624.155(3)(c)	Whether a bad-faith lawsuit can proceed.	When the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) delivers the Civil Remedy Notice to the insurer.
Claim-Payment Deadline	§ 627.70131	Whether the insurer paid or denied the underlying claim on time.	When the insurer receives notice of the claim itself.
Acknowledgment Duty	§ 627.70131(1)(a)	How quickly the insurer must acknowledge receipt of your claim.	When the insurer receives your first communication.

 

Both rules matter, but they answer different questions. Missing a § 627.70131 payment deadline is evidence that can support a bad-faith claim, though it doesn't amount to a bad-faith claim on its own. The bad-faith claim only exists once you've gone through the § 624.155 notice-and-cure process.

 

The practical upshot for policyholders: if your insurer blew past a payment deadline, that's a claims-handling problem you can raise. But filing a bad-faith lawsuit is a separate legal step governed by its own notice requirement — skipping it, or misunderstanding it, can sink an otherwise valid claim.

 

How The Cure Process Works, Step By Step

 

The 60-day rule follows a specific sequence rather than happening automatically, and each step has its own requirements.

 

Filing The Civil Remedy Notice With DFS

 

A Civil Remedy Notice functions as the formal, legal step that puts an insurer on official notice that a bad-faith lawsuit may follow, rather than an informal complaint to your agent or a call to customer service. Filing a Civil Remedy Notice runs through DFS's online Civil Remedy system, a formal process distinct from any letter or call to your insurance agent. DFS guidance describes the notice as meant for policyholders who are "beginning the process of filing suit against an insurer" and must identify the specific statutory violations at issue. 

The filing must be made on a form provided by the department and must "state with specificity" each of the five items listed at §624.155(3)(b)1.–5. Because the notice is a statutory condition precedent to suit under §624.155(3)(a), a notice that omits those elements may fail to perfect the right to sue even if it is accepted into the portal. The practical risk is not only rejection at the counter — it is a defective notice that is not challenged until the insurer moves for summary judgment.

The specificity requirement is statutory, not discretionary. And sect. 624.155(3)(b) requires the notice to "state with specificity" five things: the statutory provision violated including the specific language of the statute, the facts and circumstances giving rise to the violation, the name of any individual involved, reference to the relevant policy language, and a statement that the notice is given to perfect the right to sue. A notice missing those elements can fail before anyone reaches the question of whether the insurer cured in time.

 

What "Curing" A Violation Legally Requires

 

Once DFS transmits the notice, the insurer has 60 days to either pay the damages owed or otherwise correct the problem described in the notice. Importantly, "curing" means resolving the specific violation identified in the CRN, usually by paying what's contractually owed, rather than settling every dollar a policyholder might eventually claim in a lawsuit. That distinction becomes critical in the case study below.

 

In practice, an insurer only has to pay the underlying amount owed under the policy within the 60 days to cure a violation, not speculative bad-faith damages on top of it. Bad-faith damages, if they ever come into play, only become available once the insurer has failed to cure within the window. The case below is the Florida Supreme Court authority behind that exact point.

 

Step	What Happens	Typical Timing
Claim filed	Policyholder submits the insurance claim, and the insurer must acknowledge receipt and begin its investigation.	Acknowledgment generally due within 7 calendar days.
Dispute arises	The insurer denies, underpays, or delays the claim, and the policyholder disputes the insurer's handling.	Varies depending on the claim.
CRN filed with DFS	The policyholder files a Civil Remedy Notice (CRN) with the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS), describing the alleged statutory violation.	Any time after the dispute is identified.
Cure window opens	DFS transmits the CRN to the insurer, triggering the statutory 60-day cure period.	Day 0.
Insurer response	The insurer either pays the amount owed, corrects the alleged violation, or takes no corrective action.	Within the 60-day cure period.
Suit becomes available	If the insurer has not cured the alleged violation within the statutory period, the policyholder may pursue a bad-faith action, subject to Florida law.	Day 61 onward.

 

• What this means in practice is that every step in this chain depends on the one before it. File the CRN too early — before there's a determined, unpaid amount owed — and there may be nothing left to "cure." File it too late, after the insurer has already paid, and the same problem occurs from the other direction, since timing here functions less like a technicality and more like the substance of the case itself.

 

If the insurer lets the 60-day window pass without paying or correcting the issue, it simply opens the door to filing a bad-faith lawsuit rather than automatically handing the policyholder a win, since the policyholder still has to prove the insurer's conduct during that window was unreasonable, not just that the calendar ran out.

 

If your damages haven't been formally determined yet, appraisal is often the step that establishes them — a formal appraisal or arbitration award can affect exactly when your CRN timing works in your favor.

Appraisal is only one route to that number, and picking the wrong one costs you time. Appraisal resolves how much is owed, not whether anything is owed — which is why a flat denial of coverage generally can't be forced into appraisal at all, and why policyholders facing one have to establish the amount some other way before a cure window has anything to bite on.

 

When A Payout Still Isn't Enough: The Talat V. Aetna Case

To understand how strictly Florida courts enforce this timing, it helps to look at a real case: Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 753 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 2000) (No. SC93287), decided by the Florida Supreme Court.

The case travelled an unusual route, and each stop is publicly posted. A federal magistrate judge granted summary judgment for Aetna in Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 952 F. Supp. 773 (M.D. Fla. 1996). The Eleventh Circuit, finding no controlling Florida precedent, certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court in an unpublished June 23, 1998 order. The Florida Supreme Court answered on March 2, 2000 in its slip opinion in No. SC 93287, and the Eleventh Circuit then affirmed on May 12, 2000 in its published per curiam opinion, No. 97-2327.

What Happened

 A fire damaged the kitchen of Billy the Kid's Buffet, a restaurant owned by Talat Enterprises and insured by Aetna under a commercial fire policy, on April 15, 1994. The restaurant reopened within days and Aetna paid $10,000 at that point. On June 9, 1994, Talat demanded an appraisal and appointed a public adjuster, who submitted proofs of loss of $141,704 for personal property and $291,111 for lost business income. After Talat filed for Chapter 11 in September 1994, the bankruptcy court dismissed its breach-of-contract suit and compelled arbitration under the arbitration clause contained in the policy's appraisal provision.

On February 3, 1995, the arbitrators returned an appraisal award in Talat's favor for $331,930.47 — $119,007.47 for personal property and $212,923.00 for business interruption loss. A terminology note, because this article draws a sharp line between appraisal and other routes to establishing an amount owed: the mechanism here was appraisal, and the panel members are referred to in the record as arbitrators because the policy's appraisal provision contained an arbitration clause. The operative instrument throughout is the appraisal award.

Aetna paid that full appraisal award about a month later, on or around March 3, 1995. Talat then sent its statutory bad-faith notice on March 15, 1995 — after Aetna had already paid.

 

The Question Before The Court

 

The case reached the Florida Supreme Court on a certified question from the federal Eleventh Circuit: if an insurer pays the full contractual amount owed within 60 days of a bad-faith notice, but pays none of the extra-contractual (bad-faith) damages the policyholder is also seeking, has it still "cured" the violation under the statute?

 

What The Court Decided.

The court sided with Aetna, holding that paying the contractual amount owed — here, the appraisal award — was enough to cure the violation, even though Aetna never paid any additional bad-faith damages. In reaching that result the Florida Supreme Court adopted the district court's reasoning wholesale, stating: "We find United States Magistrate Judge Glazebrook's analysis of this issue to be correct." That analysis rejected Talat's reading of the statute as "expansive and illogical," and the phrase captures the core of the ruling: the cure window is not a blank check for whatever damages a policyholder might later claim at trial.

 

The practical reasoning behind that limit came from the same passage. If an insurer "may avoid a bad faith action only by paying in advance every penny of the damages that it faces if it loses at trial, the insurer would have no reason to pay" — and, the court added, few insureds would stop at compensatory damages, since nothing would prevent demands for advance payment of punitive damages and attorney's fees too. Capping "cure" at the contract amount is what gives insurers a reason to pay promptly in the first place.

 

The Court then stated the rule in its own words: "The statutory cause of action for extra-contractual damages simply never comes into existence until expiration of the sixty-day window without the payment of the damages owed under the contract." It described that window as "a last opportunity for insurers to comply with their claim-handling obligations when a good-faith decision by the insurer would indicate that contractual benefits are owed."

Because Aetna had already paid the arbitration award weeks before Talat even sent its notice, there was nothing left unpaid for Aetna to "cure" — the claim was effectively over before it started.

 

This is exactly the scenario many policyholders find themselves asking about: if an insurer has already paid the appraisal award in full, can a bad-faith suit still move forward? Based on Talat, the answer depends entirely on sequencing. If the payment happened before the notice was sent, there's typically nothing left to cure, and the claim may not survive. If the notice went out first — while money was still genuinely owed — the analysis can look very different.

One small detail in the record is worth pausing on, because it previews the modern rule. Talat sent its notice on March 15, 1995, but the court calculated the cure deadline as May 16 — sixty days from March 17, the date the Insurance Commissioner confirmed receipt. Even under the 1993 statute, the two-day gap between sending and receipt moved the deadline. Today §624.155(3)(c) makes that explicit by running the window from the date the insurer receives notice from the department. The send date has never been the date that counts.

 

Is Notice And Cure Decided By A Judge Or A Jury?

 

One more practical question policyholders often have: who actually decides whether an insurer "cured" in time? The Notes on Use to Florida Standard Jury Instruction 404.4, "Insurer's Bad Faith (Failure to Settle)," answer this directly and cite Talat as the reason: "In cases brought under F.S. 624.155, issues of notice and cure generally will be determined by the court." Because of that, the committee provides no standard jury instruction on those issues at all — these disputes are typically resolved by a judge, often on summary judgment, as happened in Talat itself.

Why This Case Still Matters For Policyholders Today

 

It's tempting to read Talat as a case that only helps insurers, but the court's reasoning also confirms that an insurer cannot simply run out the clock and pay late without consequence: a late payment doesn't automatically excuse bad faith, though it doesn't automatically prove it either. What the case really underscores is sequencing: the notice has to go out while money is still genuinely owed. Once the insurer has already paid in full, there's typically nothing left for a bad-faith notice to accomplish.

 

• A note on the numbers and citations: the $331,930.47 figure and the case facts above come directly from the published opinion. The statute the case was decided under has since been renumbered — in 1993, the cure provision lived at § 624.155(2)(d); today the same substantive rule, requiring payment or correction within 60 days to avoid a bad-faith action, appears at § 624.155(3)(c). The wording has changed slightly with each revision, but the core 60-day cure mechanism hasn't.

 

If a bad-faith claim does move forward past the cure window, the damages available can go beyond the original policy amount, depending on the specific facts of the case.

 

What Counts As Bad Faith — And What Doesn't

 

Not every denial you disagree with, slow claims process, or lowball offer amounts to "bad faith" under Florida law. The statute defines the insurer's duty specifically: an insurer engages in bad faith by "not attempting in good faith to settle claims when, under all the circumstances, it could and should have done so." That's a fairly high bar, and Florida courts and the legislature have both worked to keep ordinary coverage disputes from being reframed as bad-faith cases.

Since House Bill 837's 2023 reforms, that distinction has been written directly into the statute. Section 624.155(5)(a) now states plainly that "mere negligence alone is insufficient to constitute bad faith," and the Legislature's own final staff analysis of CS/CS/HB 837 confirms that was the intended effect. 

The same amendments added a duty running the other way: insureds, claimants, and their representatives must act in good faith in furnishing information, making demands, and setting deadlines, and a trier of fact may reduce damages where they did not. A mistake, a slow adjuster, or a coverage disagreement — without more — generally won't meet the bad-faith standard on its own.

Where insurers do lose, it is usually the documented handling of the file that decides it rather than the delay standing alone. A recent illustration comes from the third-party side rather than the statutory one: in Wood v. Progressive Select Insurance Co., No. 24-13479 (11th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025) (unpublished), a jury in the underlying state suit returned a $267,608.50 verdict against two insureds carrying $50,000 in bodily injury liability limits. The Woods then brought a separate common-law third-party bad-faith action — not a §624.155 claim, and so no Civil Remedy Notice or cure window was involved — and a jury found Progressive had acted in bad faith. Affirming the denial of judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the Eleventh Circuit pointed to evidence that Progressive failed to disclose settlement overtures to its own insureds and that it "ignored information made available to it regarding Buckner's medical history," including withdrawing its own medical expert after he concluded the collision had at minimum aggravated a pre-existing spinal condition.

Two cautions on reading that case alongside this one. The opinion is marked "not for publication," so it is persuasive rather than binding. And because Wood was a common-law third-party claim, none of the notice-and-cure sequencing described above applied to it. What it does illustrate — and the reason it belongs here — is the evidentiary point: what sank Progressive was the documented content of the claim file, not the passage of time.

 

Ordinary Coverage Dispute	Potential Bad Faith
Insurer denies part of a claim based on a reasonable policy interpretation.	Insurer denies a claim without investigating it at all.
Payment is slower than the policyholder hoped, but within statutory deadlines.	Insurer misses statutory acknowledgment or payment deadlines without a valid excuse.
Insurer and policyholder disagree on the value of the loss.	Insurer fails to communicate any explanation for a low or denied payment.
A single, isolated processing delay.	A documented pattern of stalling after liability is reasonably clear.
Insurer requests reasonable additional documentation.	Insurer misrepresents policy terms to justify a lower payout.

 

Florida Bar commentary on this area of law notes that insurers are expected to handle claims "fairly and honestly," which is the standard courts apply when weighing whether a specific denial or delay crosses the line from a dispute into a statutory violation. That's the practical test for how to know whether your insurer's conduct has crossed into bad-faith territory: not whether you're unhappy with the outcome, but whether the insurer's handling of the claim was fair and honest under all the circumstances.

Denial patterns are also shifting for reasons that have nothing to do with an individual claim's merits. Insurers are increasingly using AI to review and deny claims, which means the "fairly and honestly" question can now turn on whether a human being weighed your file at all — a distinction worth pinning down before you try to describe the insurer's conduct with specificity in a Civil Remedy Notice.

 

• It's worth keeping in mind that not every frustrating claims experience supports a bad-faith case. Understanding this distinction early can save time and help policyholders focus on the specific facts — missed deadlines, unexplained denials, lack of investigation — that actually matter under the statute.

 

First-Party vs. Third-Party Bad Faith

 

Florida law actually recognizes two different flavors of bad faith, and mixing them up is a common source of confusion. Third-party bad faith involves how an insurer handles a claim brought against its own policyholder — for example, failing to settle within policy limits when a third party sues the insured. That duty has deep roots in Florida common law, predating the statute by decades.

An excess judgment — the gap between a policy's limit and what a jury actually awards — is the injury that makes those third-party cases possible. The duties Florida courts still apply come from Boston Old Colony Insurance Co. v.Gutierrez, 386 So. 2d 783, 785 (Fla. 1980), where the insurer faced a $1,400,000 judgment and the Florida Supreme Court ultimately declined to hold it liable. 

The Court described the insurer's obligation as a duty "to use the same degree of care and diligence as a person of ordinary care and prudence should exercise in the management of his own business," and listed what that requires: advise the insured of settlement opportunities, advise as to the probable outcome of the litigation, warn of the possibility of an excess judgment, advise the insured of steps to avoid one, investigate the facts, and consider a reasonable settlement offer. The Florida Supreme Court later cautioned in Harvey v. GEICO General Insurance Co., 259 So. 3d 1, 7 (Fla. 2018) that these obligations "are not a mere checklist" and that the critical inquiry is the totality of the circumstances.

First-party bad faith, the scenario this article focuses on, involves a policyholder suing their own insurer over how their own claim was handled. Unlike third-party bad faith, it did not exist under Florida common law. The Legislature created it by statute in 1982 — the history note to §624.155 traces the section to ch. 82-243, Laws of Florida — and the Florida Supreme Court confirmed the consequence in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Laforet, 658 So. 2d 55, 58–59 (Fla. 1995): in Florida, first-party bad faith cases are actionable only under the statute. The Talat district court applied that same rule, noting that Talat "acknowledged that it claimed damages only under Fla. Stat. Ann. §624.155, and not under the common law." That is why first-party claims are governed entirely by §624.155 and its notice-and-cure requirements — there is no independent common-law fallback if the statutory process is not followed correctly.

 

Common Mistakes Policyholders Make With The 60-Day Window

 

Even a strong underlying claim can run into trouble if the notice timing is off. A few patterns show up again and again:

 

• Sending the CRN before there's a determined amount owed. If your damages haven't been established yet — through an adjuster's decision, appraisal, or litigation — there may be nothing concrete for the insurer to "cure." Generally, the right time to send a CRN is once there's a real, determined amount the insurer owes and hasn't paid — not before a number exists, and not after the check has already cleared.
• Waiting until after the insurer has already paid in full. As Talat illustrates, once full contractual payment has occurred, the notice may arrive too late to support a bad-faith claim.
• Confusing the CRN cure window with the claim-payment deadline. These are two different statutes with two different purposes — treating them as interchangeable can lead to filing the wrong notice at the wrong time.
• Assuming any late payment automatically proves bad faith. Florida law still requires the policyholder to show the insurer's conduct — not just the delay itself — was unreasonable. A late payment opens the door to a possible bad-faith claim; it doesn't win the case by itself.
• Filing a vague or incomplete notice. DFS can reject notices that don't state the alleged violation with enough specificity, and an incomplete notice may not properly start the clock.
• Treating an informal complaint as if it were a CRN. If your insurer paid only after you called customer service, emailed an adjuster, or filed a general complaint — rather than after a properly filed Civil Remedy Notice — that payment doesn't necessarily trigger the same statutory cure analysis, because the formal 60-day clock never started in the first place.

Quick Checklist Before Filing a Civil Remedy Notice

 

• Confirm the amount owed has actually been determined (adjuster decision, appraisal, or otherwise)
• Verify the insurer hasn't already paid that amount in full
• Identify the specific statutory provisions the insurer allegedly violated
• Gather documentation supporting the timeline of communications and payments
• File through the DFS Civil Remedy system with complete, specific information
• Track the 60-day window from the date DFS transmits the notice to the insurer

 

What To Do If You Think Your Insurer Acted In Bad Faith

 

If you're dealing with a claim that feels stalled, underpaid, or unexplained, a few practical steps can help before you get anywhere near a lawsuit:

• Review your policy and the insurer's written explanations. Under § 627.70131, insurers generally must provide a written explanation connecting their decision to the policy language and the facts of the loss.
• Document every communication. Dates, names, and the substance of each call or letter can matter later if timing becomes an issue.
• Compare the timeline against the statutory deadlines. Was the claim acknowledged within 7 days? Was it paid, denied, or explained within the applicable window?
• Talk to a licensed attorney before filing a Civil Remedy Notice. Because CRNs must state the alleged violation "with specificity," and because timing errors can be fatal to a claim (as in Talat), professional guidance at this stage can matter more than in almost any other part of the claims process.
• Keep expectations grounded in what "cure" actually means. As Talat shows, an insurer that pays the contract amount owed within the window generally satisfies its cure obligation — even if the policyholder believes they deserve more.

Two free resources sit outside the litigation track entirely. The DFS Division of Consumer Services can open a formal complaint on your behalf, and the department's Civil Remedy FAQs explain the portal mechanics that trip up first-time filers. If your claim is a personal lines residential property claim, §627.7142, the Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights, sets out in plain language the notices your insurer owed you and when. And for context on where Florida's standards came from, the NAIC's Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act model law is the template most states, including Florida, built their claim-handling rules on.

 

Property claims carry one more gate that Talat itself predates. Under §624.1551, Florida Statutes, a property insurance bad-faith action requires an adverse adjudication establishing the insurer's liability and the extent of damages before the claim can go forward — clearing the 60-day cure window is necessary, but for these claims it is no longer sufficient on its own.

None of this is a substitute for individualized legal advice, but understanding the process — and where policyholders commonly go wrong — can make conversations with an attorney or adjuster more productive.

Related Guides — Different Questions, Not Repeats

This page answered one question: what the insurer must do inside the 60-day cure window. These cover questions it deliberately left alone.

How To File A Civil Remedy Notice In Florida Answers how do I complete the DFS filing? — portal mechanics, mandatory form fields, and drafting the facts-and-circumstances narrative. This page assumes the CRN is already filed; that one gets you to filed.

Florida Insurance Claim Denials And Your Rights Answers how do I establish an amount owed when coverage is denied outright? — why appraisal resolves amount but not coverage, and what a flat denial leaves you. Relevant before a cure window has anything to bite on.

Excess Judgments In Florida Insurance Law Answers how is third-party bad faith proven? — the common-law duty and the Boston Old Colony factors. A different cause of action from the §624.155 first-party claim analyzed above; no CRN is required.

Insurers Are Using AI To Deny Claims Answers what does the claim file look like now? — automated adjudication and whether a human reviewed your file. Evidence that feeds the specificity narrative, not a timing rule.

Editorial Disclaimer

 

This article explains how Florida's 60-day bad-faith cure rule under §624.155 operates, using Talat Enterprises, Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 753 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 2000), as a decided example of how Florida courts interpret "curing" a violation. 

It is intended to help policyholders understand the notice-and-cure timeline, the difference between the CRN cure window and the separate §627.70131 claim-payment deadline, and the general distinction between an ordinary coverage dispute and conduct that may rise to bad faith. 

It is not legal, financial, insurance, or tax advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship with the author or this publication.

 

Every insurance claim carries its own facts, and the timing rules described here can produce different outcomes depending on when a claim was acknowledged, when an amount owed was determined, and when a Civil Remedy Notice was filed or received by the Florida Department of Financial Services. 

Statutes and case law are also subject to amendment and further judicial interpretation after this article's publication date, so readers should confirm the current text of §624.155 and §627.70131 before relying on the timelines summarized here.

 

If you believe your insurer failed to pay or correct a violation within the statutory cure period, or if you are unsure whether your situation matches the sequencing issue at the center of Talat, consult a Florida-licensed attorney before filing a Civil Remedy Notice or taking any action based on this article. 

Timing errors in this area of law can be case-ending, and only an attorney reviewing your specific claim file can tell you how these rules apply to your circumstances.

Quick Reference — Case Details

Full Case Name & Citation	Talat Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Billy the Kid's Buffet, Appellant, v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Co., d/b/a Aetna Life and Casualty, Appellee, 753 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 2000); 25 Fla. L. Weekly S172.
Docket Numbers	Fla. Sup. Ct. No. SC 93287. Certified from 11th Cir. No. 97-2327. District court: No. 95-00760-CIV-ORL-22 (M.D. Fla.), reported at 952 F. Supp. 773 (M.D. Fla. 1996). Related bankruptcy: No. 94-4638-BKC-6B1.
Court & Jurisdiction	Supreme Court of Florida, answering a certified question of state law from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; jurisdiction under art. V, §3(b)(6), Fla. Const. Jurisdiction accepted at 728 So. 2d 205 (Fla. 1998).
Dates	Fire: April 15, 1994. Appraisal demanded: June 9, 1994. Bankruptcy filed: September 7, 1994. Appraisal award: February 3, 1995. Aetna's payment: on or about March 3, 1995. Statutory notice sent: March 15, 1995; receipt confirmed by the Insurance Commissioner March 17, 1995. Cure deadline: May 16, 1995 — sixty days measured from the March 17 confirmation of receipt, not from the March 15 send date. Suit filed: May 23, 1995. Question certified: June 23, 1998. Decided: March 2, 2000. 11th Cir. affirmed: May 12, 2000.
Disposition	Certified question answered in the affirmative; record returned to the Eleventh Circuit, which then affirmed summary judgment for Aetna.
Parties	Talat Enterprises, Inc. (insured, appellant) v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Co. (insurer, appellee). Amici: Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, supporting appellant; Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co. and United Services Automobile Association, supporting appellee.
Panel	Wells, J., writing. Harding, C.J., and Shaw, Anstead, Pariente, and Lewis, JJ., concurring. Quince, J., concurring in result only. Below: U.S. Magistrate Judge James G. Glazebrook, sitting as the district court by consent.
Statutes At Issue	§624.155(2)(a) and (2)(d), Fla. Stat. (1993) — the notice and cure provisions; liability alleged under §624.155(1)(b)1. Renumbered today at §624.155(3)(a)–(c), Fla. Stat.
Court Links	Florida Supreme Court slip opinion, No. SC 93287 (PDF) · Full docket and merits briefs, FSU College of Law · Eleventh Circuit opinion, No. 97-2327 (PDF) · District court opinion, 952 F. Supp. 773 (M.D. Fla. 1996) · Oral argument video, February 1, 1999 · Florida Supreme Court opinions portal