Informational only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this post. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.
Disclaimer — Not Legal Advice. This article is published for general informational and educational purposes only. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and should not be relied upon as a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction. Statutes, rules, and case law change frequently; portions of this article may be out of date by the time you read it. Reading this article, contacting the author, or commenting on it does not, by itself, retain counsel. If you believe you have a legal claim or defense, consult an attorney admitted in the relevant jurisdiction promptly because deadlines (statutes of limitations, claim-presentment, and notice requirements) can extinguish rights without warning. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
*For years, Cammarata gave Florida property policyholders a critical strategic tool: the appraisal award as the trigger for a bad faith action. The 2023 legislature handed insurers a response. Counsel must understand both.*
Doctrinal Framing
Timing is everything in Florida first-party bad faith litigation. Before a policyholder can file suit under § 624.155, the underlying claim must be "ripe" — the coverage and damages questions must be resolved in the insured's favor. For years, Florida courts debated exactly what that resolution required. Must the insured win a breach of contract judgment? Would an appraisal award suffice? Could the parties stipulate to the underlying facts?
Cammarata v. State Farm Florida Insurance Co., 152 So. 3d 606 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014) (en banc), review denied, 171 So. 3d 120 (Fla. 2015), settled the ripeness question for the pre-reform era with clarity: a favorable coverage determination plus a damages determination — obtained through appraisal — is sufficient to ripen a bad faith action. A formal breach of contract judgment is not a prerequisite.
Understanding Cammarata matters not only for its holding but for its strategic implications. And since the 2023 legislative reforms — specifically Fla. Stat. § 624.1551 — the holding's practical force for property insurance claims has been substantially curtailed. This post examines the Cammarata framework, its interaction with the CRN requirement, and the post-reform landscape that has reshaped when and how Florida property insurers can be held liable for bad faith.
The Pre-Cammarata Ripeness Debate
The Florida Supreme Court's framework for first-party bad faith ripeness traces to Blanchard v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 575 So. 2d 1289 (Fla. 1991), and its recognition that a bad faith action is distinct from and must await resolution of the underlying coverage claim. But Blanchard arose in the context of uninsured motorist coverage and did not resolve whether, in first-party property claims, the predicate "favorable resolution" required a full breach of contract adjudication.
The question was consequential: if a breach of contract judgment is required, the bad faith action cannot be filed until after a trial, appeal, and final judgment on the underlying coverage dispute — a delay of years. If an appraisal award suffices, the policyholder can move to bad faith litigation immediately after the appraisal panel issues its award, even if the insurer has not been formally adjudicated in breach.
Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal resolved this question in Cammarata.
The Cammarata Holding
The plaintiff in Cammarata had a property insurance claim with State Farm. After a dispute over the amount of loss, the parties proceeded to appraisal. The appraisal panel issued an award substantially exceeding State Farm's offer. The plaintiff then filed a Civil Remedy Notice and, following the 60-day cure period, brought a bad faith action under § 624.155.
State Farm moved for summary judgment on ripeness grounds, arguing that the bad faith action was premature because there had been no judicial determination that State Farm breached the insurance contract. The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment.
The Fourth DCA reversed, sitting en banc. The court held that the prerequisite for a first-party bad faith action is a determination of both coverage and damages in the insured's favor — not necessarily a court finding of breach. An appraisal award satisfies the damages-determination requirement because it is a binding contractual resolution of the amount of loss. Combined with the coverage determination (which was not disputed in Cammarata — State Farm had acknowledged coverage, disputing only the amount), the appraisal award was sufficient to ripen the bad faith claim.
The Florida Supreme Court declined to review the decision. 171 So. 3d 120 (Fla. 2015).
Cammarata and the CRN
The Cammarata holding has direct implications for CRN timing and strategy. If an appraisal award ripens the bad faith action, it means that the CRN — which must be filed before suit — can properly be filed after the appraisal award issues and before the 60-day cure period expires.
Importantly, Cammarata also clarifies the sequence: coverage determination + damages determination = ripeness. This means the CRN cannot be filed and a bad faith action cannot be maintained unless both elements are present. A policyholder who files a CRN before an appraisal award issues (or before any coverage determination) may have a ripeness problem even if the insurer fails to cure.
The § 624.155(f) Coordination Problem
Florida Statute § 624.155(f) prohibits filing a CRN within 60 days of the insurer's invocation of the appraisal process. This creates a sequencing constraint: if the insurer invokes appraisal, the policyholder must wait until the appraisal process concludes (and the blackout period expires) before filing the CRN. Under the pre-reform Cammarata framework, the ideal sequence was: (1) insurer invokes appraisal or appraisal proceeds; (2) appraisal award issues; (3) blackout period expires; (4) CRN filed; (5) 60-day cure period; (6) bad faith suit filed.
The 2023 Reform: § 624.1551 and the Cammarata Curtailment
The 2023 legislative session fundamentally restructured Florida property insurance bad faith. Section 624.1551, enacted as part of the property insurance reform package, provides:
A claim for bad faith under § 624.155 arising out of the handling of a property insurance claim may not be brought unless the insurer has been found to have breached the insurance contract in a proceeding brought by the insured.
This provision directly targets Cammarata's core holding. Under § 624.1551:
- An appraisal award is not sufficient. The statute expressly forecloses the argument that an appraisal award — a contractual mechanism rather than a judicial determination of breach — satisfies the prerequisite.
- A full breach of contract adjudication is required. The insured must obtain a court or binding arbitration finding that the insurer breached the contract before the bad faith action can proceed.
- The CRN can still be filed — but suit cannot be commenced until the § 624.1551 prerequisite is satisfied.
Strategic Consequences
For property insurance policyholders with strong bad faith claims, § 624.1551 has restructured the calculus:
- Appraisal is no longer a bridge to bad faith for property claims. The prior strategy — invoke appraisal, win the award, file CRN, bring bad faith action — no longer works for property claims filed after the effective date of § 624.1551. (Liability claims are unaffected.)
- Contract litigation becomes mandatory. If the policyholder wants to preserve the bad faith claim, she must litigate breach of contract to a favorable adjudication before filing suit on bad faith. This increases cost and time but also increases the recoverable damages through the bad faith mechanism.
- The CRN filing strategy shifts. Since the bad faith action cannot be filed until after a breach adjudication, the CRN should be filed (1) after the underlying dispute is ripe enough to satisfy the specificity requirements and (2) with awareness that the tolled limitations period must cover the time between the CRN and the eventual breach adjudication.
- Appraisal may still be useful for the underlying damages dispute, but it no longer shortcuts the path to bad faith. The question becomes whether the economics of a breach of contract trial justify the additional cost relative to the bad faith damages available.
Cammarata's Continuing Relevance
Despite § 624.1551's curtailment, Cammarata retains relevance in several contexts:
Liability insurance claims. Cammarata's ripeness framework applies to first-party bad faith generally. For uninsured motorist and other liability-adjacent claims, the appraisal-ripening principle survives § 624.1551.
Claims filed before the reform's effective date. Property claims with losses predating the 2023 reform may be governed by pre-reform law. The applicable version of the statute depends on when the insurance contract was issued or renewed and potentially when the claim arose. Verify which statutory version applies in any given case.
*The Cunningham stipulation alternative. Cunningham v. Standard Guaranty Insurance Co.*, 630 So. 2d 179 (Fla. 1994), recognized that a stipulation between the parties can serve as the functional equivalent of an excess judgment for purposes of ripening a bad faith failure-to-settle claim. This contractual-ripening mechanism remains available for appropriate cases and operates independently of § 624.1551.
Interpreting "adverse adjudication" under § 624.1551. The statute requires a finding of breach "in a proceeding brought by the insured." Courts will be asked to define what counts as a sufficient "proceeding" — does summary judgment on liability suffice before a damages trial? Does a declaratory judgment action on coverage qualify? These questions will produce litigation in the near term.
Practice Notes
File the CRN with the breach trial in mind. Since § 624.1551 now requires a prior breach adjudication for property claims, draft the CRN to track the same factual narrative as the breach of contract complaint. Inconsistencies between the CRN and the contract complaint will be exploited by defense counsel.
Preserve the limitations period. The CRN tolls the statute of limitations during the 60-day cure period. But the five-year limitations period for contract claims and the four-year period for statutory bad faith are running simultaneously. Chart all deadlines before filing.
The appraisal decision is now a strategic fork. For property claims with bad faith potential, the decision to invoke appraisal (or consent to insurer invocation) should be made with full awareness that appraisal no longer shortcuts to bad faith. If the bad faith damages are significant, proceeding directly to breach litigation may better serve the client's interests.
Evaluate the "general business practice" argument early. Section 624.155(8) conditions punitive damages on proof of a general business practice. If your claim arises from systemic conduct — the insurer's algorithmic underpayment program, its post-storm claims handling policies, its adjuster training — gather evidence of that practice through public records, expert analysis, and coordinated discovery with other plaintiffs' counsel handling similar claims against the same insurer.
Open Questions
- Retroactivity of § 624.1551. Whether the provision applies to claims on policies issued before the reform and to losses occurring before the effective date remains subject to litigation.
- What "adverse adjudication" means. Whether a partial summary judgment, a directed verdict on liability, or a consent judgment satisfies § 624.1551's prerequisite is unresolved.
- **Cammarata's applicability to non-property first-party claims.** Its ripeness framework — coverage + damages determination — likely continues to govern non-property first-party bad faith claims, but post-reform courts will need to confirm the demarcation.
Conclusion
Cammarata gave Florida policyholders a powerful strategic tool: use the appraisal process to resolve the damages question and proceed directly to bad faith litigation without enduring a full breach of contract trial. The 2023 legislature took that tool away for property insurance claims. What remains is a more expensive, more time-consuming path to bad faith liability — but also a potentially larger payoff, because the bad faith action following a breach adjudication can reach conduct that a pure appraisal proceeding would never expose. The Cammarata framework endures in the non-property context and in claims governed by pre-reform law. For property insurance claims, the doctrine now requires counsel to litigate the predicate breach before the bad faith action can begin.
Talk to Yates Anderson
If you are litigating a matter in this area — or weighing whether to — the working analysis above only goes so far. Request a case evaluation and a Yates Anderson attorney will respond within one business day.
Informational only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this post. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.