Author: Laura M. Wall

Laura Wall represents clients in complex civil litigation, class actions and arbitration proceedings in the insurance and financial services industries in federal and state courts. Laura has worked on matters involving the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the False Claims Act. Laura also has experience advising insurance company clients with respect to federal and state laws and regulations, such as data breach notification laws and insurance producer licensing requirements. Read Laura's full bio on the Faegre Drinker website.

The Impact of Florida’s Tort Reform Bill on Insurance Litigation

We wanted to bring your attention today to a new client alert two of our Insurance practice colleagues have written highlighting Florida’s recent tort reform bill and its impact on insurance litigation.

On March 24, 2023, a sweeping tort reform bill was signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. House Bill 837 was touted by DeSantis as being designed to reduce frivolous lawsuits and prevent predatory practices of trial attorneys. Notably, the bill will have a significant impact on insurance litigation as it modifies the bad faith framework, eliminates one-way attorneys’ fees, shortens the statute of limitations for negligence claims and changes the comparative negligence standard.

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Other States Slow to Follow Florida’s Lead on Genetic Information Restrictions

With the widespread availability of genetic testing, especially in direct-to-consumer forms, there is a growing concern about the privacy of that information and whether it can be used by insurers to underwrite policies for certain lines of insurance. Federal law provides a base amount of protection through the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which prohibits discrimination based on genetic information in both the health insurance and employment context. However, GINA does not apply to life, disability or long-term care insurance. With such limited federal protections, individual states are left to provide greater protections if they wish to.

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Regulators Continue to Voice Concerns on Credit Scores

Concerns over the use of credit history in the insurance industry have been on regulators’ radar for some time, and economic uncertainty and increasingly widespread calls to address income inequality and systemic racial discrimination have made the issue all the more timely. Amid this backdrop, Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has asked the state legislature to introduce legislation to amend current law in order to discontinue the use of credit-based insurance scores, which he calls unfair and discriminatory.

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