Florida Supreme Court Rules 2021 Pre-Suit Notice Law Does Not Apply to Older Homeowner Insurance Policies

The Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday, Oct. 22, that a 2021 law requiring homeowners to give their insurer advance written notice before suing does not apply to property insurance policies that were already in force when the law took effect on July 1, 2021. The decision, in Universal Property and Casualty Insurance Co. v. Rebecca Hughes, settles a split among the state's appeals courts that had left policyholders with the same kind of claim facing different rules depending on where they lived.

The practical effect is narrow but real: homeowners whose disputes arise under policies bought or renewed before July 2021 cannot have their lawsuits thrown out for skipping the pre-suit notice step. The ruling also sends a broader signal about how courts should read the Legislature's string of insurance overhauls, because the justices held that a new law does not reach backward unless lawmakers clearly say it should.

What the court decided

The question before the court was whether the pre-suit notice requirement created by Senate Bill 76, a far-reaching property insurance bill the Legislature passed in 2021, applied retroactively to existing policies or only prospectively. The law, codified in section 627.70152 of the Florida Statutes, requires a policyholder to file a notice of intent to initiate litigation at least 10 business days before suing over a residential or commercial property claim. The notice is filed through the state Department of Financial Services, which sends it to the insurer.

Writing for the court, Justice John D. Couriel relied on precedents holding that when the Legislature does not say directly how a law should be applied, its silence is not clear evidence of an intent to make the law retroactive, according to the Florida Phoenix, which first reported the decision. Because SB 76 contained no such clear statement, the notice requirement did not govern Hughes' claim.

Justice Adam Tanenbaum agreed with the result but wrote separately. In his view, the precedents were not needed, because the Legislature has already directed that each amendment to the insurance code is to be construed to operate prospectively unless a contrary legislative intent is specified, the Phoenix reported.

The Hughes case

The dispute began with a 2019 water damage claim. Universal, which insured Rebecca Hughes' home from April 24, 2019, to April 24, 2020, reviewed the claim and paid it. Hughes, who had gathered three repair estimates, sought more money, and when the two sides could not agree she sued Universal on Aug. 4, 2021, about a month after SB 76 took effect.

Universal moved to dismiss, arguing that Hughes had not filed the new 10-day notice and that the requirement applied on its face to all suits. The trial judge agreed and dismissed her complaint. The Sixth District Court of Appeal reversed in November 2023, holding that the notice provision did not apply to a policy issued before the statute's effective date, and certified that its ruling conflicted with a decision from the Fourth District. The Florida Supreme Court accepted the case in January 2024 and heard oral arguments on Feb. 5, 2025, under case number SC2024-0025.

How the appeals courts split

Before Thursday's ruling, Florida's six district courts of appeal had divided on the question, so the answer depended on the region where a homeowner filed suit.

In Cole, the Fourth District reasoned that if the Legislature had intended to limit the pre-suit notice provision to policies issued after the statute's effective date, it would have included language saying so. The Supreme Court's opinion rejects that approach: the burden runs the other way, and lawmakers must clearly state an intent to apply a law to existing contracts.

Who argued what

The insurance industry lined up behind Universal. The Florida Justice Reform Institute, joined by the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies and the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the insurer, according to the Phoenix.

William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, told the Phoenix he was disappointed but said the opinion should put to rest future disputes over whether a law, insurance-related or otherwise, can be applied retroactively. He called it probably "the clearest articulation" of what is needed to make a law retroactive and said that if retroactivity is not clearly stated in legislation, a law will not be applied that way.

What it means for Florida homeowners

For most current claims, the ruling changes little. Policies issued or renewed since July 1, 2021, are covered by the notice requirement, and homeowners suing over claims under those policies still must file the notice through the state's online system and wait at least 10 business days before going to court.

The decision matters most for the backlog of older disputes, many of them over claims from 2019, 2020 and early 2021, that were still moving through the courts when the law changed. In the Third and Fourth districts, which cover Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties, insurers had been able to seek dismissal of those suits for lack of notice. That defense is now gone statewide for policies that predate the law. The ruling resolves only the procedural question; it does not decide whether Universal underpaid Hughes' claim.

The opinion also lands in the shadow of the Legislature's later overhauls. Lawmakers followed SB 76 with a December 2022 special session package that ended one-way attorney fees for policyholders who win property insurance suits, and a broad 2023 tort reform law. The Phoenix described the decision as opening the door to some lawsuits against insurers, and the court's reasoning, along with Justice Tanenbaum's reading that insurance code amendments are prospective unless lawmakers say otherwise, gives policyholders and their lawyers a clear test to apply when arguing over which version of the law governs an older policy. Large's comments suggest the industry reads the decision the same way.

What's next

The outcome favors Hughes, whose lawsuit the Sixth District had revived, though the underlying fight over how much Universal owes for her water damage is still unresolved. Other suits over pre-2021 policies that were dismissed or stalled over the same question, particularly in the Third and Fourth districts, could be affected by the Supreme Court's ruling. For lawmakers, the message from the court is that any future insurance change meant to reach existing policies will need to say so in plain terms.