West Palm Beach Bad Faith Insurance Lawyer
You paid the premium for years, and the one time you needed the policy your own insurer went quiet or offered a fraction. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our West Palm Beach personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Palm Beach County since 1993.
Bad Faith Insurance claims in West Palm Beach
The carrier has a file, a timeline and a written reason for what it did, and none of it has been shown to you. Meanwhile the repair is not happening, the money is not arriving, and the letters keep asking for documents you have already sent twice. Making them answer in writing is our job, and it starts the day you call.
Palm Beach County carries a heavy volume of both, and the pattern is similar in each: an adjuster who values the claim well below what the loss actually costs, then delays. Florida has narrowed the routes available on property claims in recent years, which makes the procedural steps stricter rather than the claim impossible, and the deadlines shorter than they used to be. A claim that sits waiting for an insurer to reconsider is a claim losing options, which is the practical reason to have the file looked at rather than to keep calling the adjuster.
Property claims underpaid after a storm and injury claims stalled after a crash run on the same statute in Palm Beach County. Florida has narrowed the routes on property claims and shortened the deadlines, which makes the procedural steps stricter rather than the claim impossible. A file sitting open is a file losing options.
What to do when an insurer will not pay
- Ask for the complete claim file in writing. Adjuster notes, the activity log, every report the carrier commissioned and the internal valuation. Ask by letter or email so there is a record of the request and the date. What is in that file, and what is missing from it, is most of a bad faith case. A carrier that investigated properly has a file that shows it, and a carrier that did not has one that shows that instead.
- Move the whole conversation into writing. Phone calls leave the carrier’s note and nothing of yours. From here on, confirm every call by email the same day: who you spoke to, what they said, what they asked for and what they promised. It takes four lines. Six months later, that sequence of emails is the timeline, and the timeline is what makes a delay look like a decision rather than an accident.
- Send what they ask for, and keep proof you sent it. Requests for documents already supplied are one of the recurring patterns here, and the answer is not to refuse. Send it again, note that it was previously provided on a date, and keep the transmission record. A carrier repeatedly asking for what it already has builds your file rather than yours falling apart.
- Know which clock you are on. An injury claim, an uninsured motorist claim and a statutory bad faith claim each run on different deadlines, and the bad faith claim generally cannot even be brought until the underlying coverage and amount have been settled. Establishing which applies is the first hour of work, because a strong claim that missed a notice deadline is not a claim.
- Do not wait for the carrier to reconsider. Waiting is the one approach that only helps the insurer. Nothing about a file sitting open improves with time: the deadlines shorten, the memories go, the adjuster changes and the loss gets harder to document. If a claim has been open for months without a decision, or with a decision that does not match what the loss actually cost, that is the point to have it looked at.
Where these disputes come from in West Palm Beach
This county carries a heavy volume of both kinds, and the pattern is the same in each: a valuation well below what the loss actually costs, and then delay.
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Storm and water damage claims
The largest category here, and the one where the deadlines catch people who were negotiating in good faith the whole time.
- Notice of the claim required within one year of the date of loss
- Supplemental claims required within 18 months, both running from the loss itself
- Payments set against an estimate no contractor in the county will work to
- Additional damage that occurred because the first repair never happened
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Injury claims that stall after the treatment ends
A file that moved while records were coming in and stopped entirely once there was a number to decide.
- An open claim with no entries in the log between calls
- Repeated requests for records already supplied
- A valuation produced by software rather than by somebody reading the file
- The carrier’s own medical review, and whether the payment followed it
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The presuit steps that come before any of it
Property disputes now carry their own procedure, and skipping it costs the case rather than delaying it.
- Written presuit notice at least 10 business days before filing
- An itemized demand setting out the acts complained of and the amounts
- A written response required from the insurer within 10 business days
- A separate civil remedy notice and 60-day cure period for the statutory claim
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Reading the policy as issued
A surprising share of these disputes come apart once somebody reads the actual document rather than the summary of it.
- The full policy with all endorsements, rather than the declarations page
- Which exclusion is being relied on, quoted precisely and in writing
- Conditions the carrier says were not met, against what was actually submitted
- Coverage the policyholder did not know they had, which turns up regularly
What insurers do that the statute addresses
- Requesting documents that were already supplied, repeatedly, as a way of restarting the clock
- Denying a claim without an investigation that could reasonably support the denial
- Ignoring the carrier’s own medical review when it favored the claim
- Failing to acknowledge, investigate or decide within the periods the regulations set
- Paying an amount well below what the treatment actually cost
What an insurer’s delay actually costs
A settlement taken because waiting was no longer possible
The quietest harm in this practice. Somebody with no income and mounting bills accepts a fraction of what the claim was worth, not because they were persuaded but because the carrier outlasted them. A release signed under that pressure cannot be reopened, and the pressure itself is frequently the point of the delay.
Financial harm that outlasts the claim
Medical debt sent to collection, credit damaged, a mortgage that fell behind while a covered loss went unpaid, work missed for appointments that a carrier’s delay made necessary. These are consequences of the handling rather than of the original loss, and they are pleaded separately because they are proved separately.
The original injury, made worse
Where delayed care allowed a treatable condition to become a permanent one, that deterioration is part of what the conduct caused. It requires medical evidence linking the delay to the outcome rather than an assertion, which is why the treating physicians are asked about it while it is happening rather than years later.
What Florida law requires you to prove
The notice comes first, and the carrier gets 60 days
A statutory bad faith claim runs under Fla. Stat. § 624.155, and it starts with a civil remedy notice filed with the Department of Financial Services and served on the insurer. The notice is a condition precedent: no action lies until 60 days have passed, and none lies at all if the carrier pays or corrects the problem inside that window. Many do, which is the fastest good outcome available. It has to identify the statutory provisions, the facts and the policy language relied on, so a vague one hands the carrier an argument it should never have had.
What has to be shown, and what is not enough
The core ground is an insurer not attempting in good faith to settle a claim when, under all the circumstances, it could and should have done so had it acted fairly and honestly toward its insured and with due regard for their interests. It also reaches the unfair claim settlement practices listed in Fla. Stat. § 626.9541. Since 2023 it says plainly that mere negligence alone is insufficient, which raised the bar and did not remove it. A carrier that ignored its own file rather than mishandled it is still squarely inside the section.
The insurer has a way out, and so do you
Under the same statute a bad faith action does not lie where the insurer tenders the lesser of the policy limits or the amount demanded within 90 days of receiving actual notice of a claim supported by sufficient evidence. That is the safe harbor, and it is why the first demand is written carefully rather than casually. The statute also puts a duty of good faith on the insured and the claimant, and lets the trier of fact reduce damages where it was not met. Both directions matter before the first letter goes out.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide bad faith insurance page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Palm Beach County
Every one of these questions is answerable from paper, and most of the paper we can get within weeks of somebody asking properly.
- The complete claim file, the activity log and the adjuster notes
- The policy as issued, with every endorsement
- The date of loss and the dated record of what was reported when
- Every estimate, engineering report and medical review the carrier obtained
- Independent contractor estimates or treating records showing what the loss actually costs
- Dated proof of everything sent to the carrier, and every request it repeated
- Photographs of the property or the injury as it stood at each stage
- The presuit notice and the civil remedy notice, each drafted to what the statute requires
The order matters as much as the content. Two separate notice requirements can apply to the same dispute, they run on different clocks, and getting them out of sequence is a self-inflicted problem.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in West Palm Beach is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled bad faith insurance claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Brett Yonon is who this firm puts on a catastrophic injury or a death in the family, and he has tried those cases to verdict. Full profile →
What a carrier says once you push back
Everything above describes what a carrier did. This is what it says once somebody stops accepting it, and none of these answers is the end of a conversation.
- This is what the claim is worth
- Ask what it was valued against. Injury claims are routinely valued by software fed with codes rather than by somebody reading the treating records, and property losses by an estimate no contractor will work to. Ask for the valuation and its inputs. Where the carrier’s own review supported the claim and the payment did not follow it, that gap is the case.
- That is not covered under the policy
- Ask which provision, in writing, and read it against the policy as issued rather than the summary. Denials rest on exclusions that do not apply, on conditions that were met, and on policy language quoted loosely more often than most people would expect. A denial the carrier cannot tie to specific wording is a different thing from a denial it can.
- The limits are only $10,000, so that is all there is
- Sometimes true and worth testing rather than accepting. Where the carrier had a genuine opportunity to settle inside those limits and did not take it, a judgment above them can be pursued against the carrier itself. There may also be other policies: an umbrella, an employer’s coverage if the driver was working, or uninsured motorist coverage on your own household policy.
What a claim can include
Interest, and the cost of the delay
Interest on what was owed, and the documented financial consequences of not having it: collection activity, credit harm, a loan taken to cover a covered loss.
The difference between what was paid and what was owed
Where a carrier valued an injury against a template rather than against the records, the shortfall is the starting point. It is established from the treating physicians and the bills rather than from an argument about the adjuster.
Medical consequences of delayed care
Where treatment stopped because nothing was paying and a condition worsened as a result, that deterioration is part of what the handling caused, proved through the treating physicians.
Why Wolf & Pravato in West Palm Beach
A Palm Beach County bad faith case is filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach, and the firm’s office on Vista Parkway is in the county rather than across the state. Where a claim needs a contractor’s estimate or a treating physician’s opinion to answer the carrier’s number, that is easier to arrange from inside the county.
Board Certification in Civil Trial law is the Bar’s own measure of trial experience, and 861 of Florida’s 109,000-plus lawyers hold it. Richard Pravato has held it since 2004. It is the credential that changes how an adjuster reads a file, because it says the case has somewhere to go if they will not pay it.
Asking costs nothing and there is no fee unless we win. If we look at what happened and think the claim is not worth pursuing, we will say so on the first call instead of signing you up.
West Palm Beach bad faith insurance questions
How long should I keep waiting for my insurer to pay?
Not indefinitely. Florida sets deadlines for insurers to acknowledge, investigate and pay, and separate deadlines that limit how long you have to act. Waiting is the one strategy that only helps the carrier. If a claim has been open for months without a decision, or with a decision that does not match the loss, that in itself is worth having reviewed.
The adjuster keeps asking for things I already sent.
Send them again, and each time note in writing the date they were first provided. Repeated requests for material already in the file are one of the patterns the statute addresses, and every repetition adds to your record rather than to their excuse. What matters is that the sequence is documented, because the sequence is what shows whether a carrier was investigating or waiting you out.
They paid something, just not enough. Does that count?
It can. Underpayment is squarely within the unfair claim settlement practices the statute reaches, and a payment does not close the question of whether the claim was handled in good faith. What answers it is the gap between the payment and what the repair or the treatment actually costs, evidenced by a contractor or a treating physician rather than asserted.
Can I bring this against the other driver’s insurer?
Third party bad faith is recognized in Florida but it is different from a claim against your own insurer, and it typically arises after a judgment exceeds the available coverage. Which route applies depends on the posture of the underlying case, which is worth working through early.
My insurer is delaying. Is that bad faith?
It might be, and delay alone usually is not. What matters is whether the handling was reasonable: whether the insurer investigated properly, communicated, and responded to settlement opportunities. The pattern in the correspondence is what establishes it, which is why keeping the paper trail matters so much.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 2101 Vista Parkway, Suite 4500, West Palm Beach, FL 33411.