Florida Insurance Bad Faith Damages Calculator

How this calculator works

Florida law recognizes two parallel theories under which a policyholder (or a third-party claimant standing in the policyholder's shoes) can recover damages from an insurer that has handled a claim in bad faith. The first is the statutory cause of action under F.S. § 624.155, anchored to the unfair claim-settlement practices enumerated in F.S. § 626.9541, and gated by the mandatory 60-day Civil Remedy Notice (CRN) under F.S. § 624.155(3). The second is the common-law third-party bad-faith doctrine developed in Boston Old Colony Ins. Co. v. Gutierrez, Berges v. Infinity Ins. Co., and Harvey v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co., which holds an insurer liable for the full excess judgment when it rejects a within-limits settlement offer that a reasonably prudent insurer would have accepted. The calculator surfaces both theories side by side so a policyholder, attorney, or judgment creditor can see the statutory and common-law framings of the same underlying exposure.

The calculator reads the CRN cure-window status, computes the excess-judgment exposure under the common-law theory, applies the statutory total-damages measure under F.S. § 624.155(8), and emits one of five recommendations: serve a CRN, await the cure window, close the file (if the carrier cured), file a statutory bad-faith suit, or retain counsel immediately (if an excess judgment has entered).

The 60-day Civil Remedy Notice under F.S. § 624.155(3)

The CRN is the mandatory pre-suit document for a statutory bad-faith action. A claimant must file the CRN with the Florida Department of Financial Services using the DFS Civil Remedy Notice portal and serve a copy on the insurer. The CRN identifies the specific policy provision and statutory section the insurer allegedly violated (typically one or more of the unfair claim-settlement practices enumerated in F.S. § 626.9541), describes the unfair conduct with facts and dates, and demands a cure. The insurer then has 60 days from service of the CRN to cure — by paying the damages owed, correcting the unfair claim-settlement practice, or otherwise satisfying the underlying claim. If the insurer cures within the 60-day window, the statutory cause of action under F.S. § 624.155 is foreclosed. If the 60-day window elapses without cure, the statutory cause of action ripens and the claimant may file suit under F.S. § 624.155(8) seeking the total amount of the claimant's damages, including attorney's fees and costs.

The 60-day window is a strict deadline. Courts treat the CRN as a condition precedent to suit, and a complaint filed before the 60 days have elapsed is subject to dismissal for failure to comply with F.S. § 624.155(3). During the window, document the carrier's response (or non-response) in real time — every communication becomes evidence in the bad-faith pleading if the window elapses without cure.

HB 837 (2023) and the particularity pleading requirement

HB 837 (2023), signed March 24, 2023, made three principal changes to Florida bad-faith practice. First, the CRN must now specify the alleged bad faith with particularity — the specific policy language and statutory provision violated, the unfair claim-settlement practice alleged, and the cure demanded. A generalized CRN that fails to plead with specificity is vulnerable to dismissal. Second, HB 837 codified a mere-negligence safe harbor: mere negligence in claim handling alone is insufficient to constitute bad faith. Third, HB 837 tightened the time-sequencing rules around contemporaneous settlement offers. Post-HB 837 practice requires a developed factual record in the CRN itself — plaintiff counsel should treat the CRN as a litigation document, not a form filing.

The common-law excess-judgment doctrine

When an insurer is defending a covered third-party liability claim and a within-limits settlement offer is made, the insurer has a duty to evaluate the offer with the same care it would exercise if the insurer itself were liable for the entire judgment. This is the Boston Old Colony doctrine, refined in Berges and Harvey. The duty runs from the insurer to the insured, and a breach exposes the insurer to the full excess judgment that subsequently enters against the insured — not just the policy limit the insurer would otherwise have owed under the contract.

The excess-judgment exposure formula is straightforward: exposure equals the maximum of zero and the final judgment minus the policy limit. A policy limit of 100,000 dollars, a within-limits settlement demand of 100,000 dollars rejected by the carrier, a case that proceeds to verdict, and a jury verdict of 2,500,000 dollars produces an excess-judgment exposure of 2,400,000 dollars on top of the policy-limit obligation the carrier already owed. Florida courts have repeatedly affirmed multi-million-dollar excess-judgment verdicts in cases where the carrier sat on a within-limits demand from a credible third-party claimant.

The common-law claim does not require a CRN — it is brought by the insured (or by the third-party judgment creditor as assignee of the insured's bad-faith cause of action) after the excess judgment enters. Assignments of the insured's bad-faith claim to the third-party judgment creditor are common practice in this posture; the assignment structure should be drafted by Florida-licensed bad-faith counsel.

A worked example — uncured CRN, large first-party loss

A homeowner suffers a 500,000-dollar hurricane loss on a policy with a Coverage A dwelling limit of 100,000 dollars. The carrier denies the claim, citing an exclusion. The homeowner's public adjuster documents the loss at 500,000 dollars and the carrier responds with a 25,000-dollar offer described as a goodwill payment. The homeowner serves a CRN identifying F.S. § 626.9541(1)(i)(3)(d) (failure to attempt good-faith settlement when liability has become reasonably clear) with particularity. Seventy-five days pass without cure.

The calculator reads the CRN status as uncured-ripe. The statutory cause of action under F.S. § 624.155 has ripened. The estimated total damages exposure under F.S. § 624.155(8) is the unpaid underlying claim — 500,000 dollars minus the 25,000-dollar settlement offer equals 475,000 dollars, plus attorney's fees and costs to the prevailing claimant. The recommendation is to file the statutory bad-faith suit. The bad-faith total-damages measure may reach the full underlying claim even though the policy limit is only 100,000 dollars; the bad-faith remedy is not capped at the policy limit.

What the calculator does not do

This calculator is a planning estimator. The case-specific damages award is set by the jury, subject to remittitur, post-trial motions, and appeal. The attorney's fees award under F.S. § 624.155(8) is set by the trial court on a lodestar-plus-multiplier analysis (Quanstrom / Rowe framework) and depends on case complexity and judicial discretion. The calculator emits a text result on fees rather than projecting a dollar figure. Punitive damages under F.S. § 624.155(8) and F.S. § 768.72 require a fact-specific evidentiary review. The calculator does not opine on assignment structures, choice-of-law issues, or the specific particularity language a given CRN should use.

How this page is maintained

F.S. § 624.155 and F.S. § 626.9541 are stable through the 2024-2026 sessions. HB 837 (2023) is the controlling reform layer; SB 2-A (2022) and follow-on legislation curtailed one-way attorney-fee shifting under F.S. § 627.428 in property-insurance postures but did not displace the F.S. § 624.155(8) fees-and-costs measure on the statutory bad-faith cause of action. The case-law foundation (Boston Old Colony, Berges, Harvey, Cunningham, Imhof) is stable and continues to be applied by Florida appellate courts in excess-judgment postures. If the legislature substantively amends F.S. § 624.155, this page is updated and re-stamped within the quarter.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-15 against F.S. § 624.155, F.S. § 626.9541, HB 837 (2023), Boston Old Colony Ins. Co. v. Gutierrez (Fla. 1980), Berges v. Infinity Ins. Co. (Fla. 2004), Harvey v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co. (Fla. 2018), Cunningham v. Standard Guaranty Ins. Co. (Fla. 1994), Imhof v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co. (Fla. 1994), and Florida Bar Trial Lawyers Section insurance bad-faith materials 2022-2026.