Don't Panic: Harvey Doesn't Alter Florida's Bad Faith Standard
By Stephen Marino and Benjamin Hassebrock ( November 14, 2018, 3:40 PM EST) -- The Florida Supreme Court's latest bad faith ruling, Harvey v. Geico,[1] reiterates two long-standing legal principles: the standard of ordinary care owed by an insurer to its insured under Florida law and the totality of the circumstances inquiry to be applied in evaluating that standard. Despite Harvey's consistency with 80 years of precedent, the dissenting opinions (and some recent commentary) predict that "mere negligence has now become bad faith" and warn of fabricated claims and market chaos. The same dire scenario was predicted by the dissenters in Berges v. Infinity Ins. Co., but never materialized. Harvey doesn't expand Florida law, an insurer's duty of ordinary care remains unchanged, and the sky isn't falling....
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