CIVIL REMEDY NOTICE

​A Civil Remedy Notice is an additional tool that allows a plaintiff’s attorney to place pressure on an insurance carrier to resolve a case.  It is simply stated, a form one fills out over the internet.  The form is timed, and therefore you must have all of the information you seek to include in the form already drafted in a file you can just copy and paste out of.  Otherwise you will end up being timed out or drafting a very poor civil remedy notice.  This form requires information such as a claim number, case number if in litigation, name of parties, policy numbers, contact information to all individuals and entities involved, a statement as to what caused the issue to arise, legal issues and pertinent law, statutory law from a drop down, amongst much more.
            When you file a civil remedy notice, you are literally telling the government of Florida, that an insurance carrier is not resolving a claim when they should have and must.  You are stating the carrier is acting in bad faith.  The point of the civil remedy notice is to cause the insurance carrier to have to conduct an investigation that would allow it to provide a response to the government whereby it makes statements as to why it is not acting in bad faith and that the party submitting the civil remedy notice is simply not providing the government with the full set of facts relevant to why it has not resolved the claim.
            If you file a really great and detailed civil remedy notice, and within 60 days of filing it, the insurance carrier has not resolved the case with you, then you have perfected the right to pursue a bad faith case if you win at trial or do not contract the right to seek extra contractual damages upon settlement.  If you couple that with pre-suit demands, Proposals for Settlement, and informal negotiations that have given an insurance carrier multiple opportunities to resolve the matter within policy limits, but they did not, then you have created enormous value to the case.  If the case warrants it, then you have been able to posture your case for resolution above and beyond contractual limits.
            Use civil remedy notice’s wisely!  Write them well or you will lose credibility as an attorney but be brave.  Just because the media and the carriers do not like the intangible damages categories does not mean your client does not have a legal right to them. You are duty bound.