Property Insurance Reform
Capital City Consulting has been involved in all the major property insurance legislative packages over the last two decades. Ashley Kalifeh has authored a number of papers on the proliferation of assignment of benefits lawsuits, the persistent abuse of the one-way attorney’s fee statute, and has published a host of empirical data that formed the underpinnings of both SB 2D and 2A.
Civil Justice Overhaul
HB 837, signed into law on March 24, 2023, was the most comprehensive legal liability reform bill in a generation. As a result of steadfast work to expose serious inequities in Florida’s tort system, the Legislature, under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, reformed laws related to the pricing of medical damages, third party bad faith, negligent security, incentives for multifamily buildings to comply with safety procedures and crime prevention audits, the statute of limitations for negligence cases, and Florida’s comparative fault system. Ashley Kalifeh led the lobbying effort on behalf of the business community, through her representation of our financial services clients, the Florida Justice Reform Institute, Associated Industries of Florida, the Coalition of Attainable Housing Providers, and others.
Auto Glass Fixes
Assignments of benefits were a particularly pervasive problem in auto glass repair work. Certain shops were using written instruments to transfer an insurance policyholder’s legal standing and then weaponizing that standing to inflate insurance costs across the entire auto market. Using data-driven evidence of the problem, and after publishing a host of reports on the aberrations in this coverage, we were able to successfully advocate for pro-consumer reforms that remove abuse from the system, require that safety and calibration standards are met, and ensure policyholders retain their insurance rights.
Stopping “Robocall” Litigation Gamesmanship
Robocalling is an annoying and often pernicious practice that both federal and Florida law correctly penalize. However, a loophole in Florida’s Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) entrapped legitimate businesses who were responding to affirmative requests from consumers to receive information. In 2023, the Florida Legislature smoothed the application of the FTSA to ensure that actual robocallers would continue to be punished and sued, but that Florida-based businesses communicating with existing customers or those who requested contact, could not be ensnared by “gotcha” lawsuits. Capital City Consulting help lead the business community’s campaign to ensure this commonsense application of the FTSA.