In Evergreen Lakes HOA, Inc. v. Lloyd's Underwriters at London, 230 So. 3d 1, No. 4D16–2657, 2017 WL 4679597 (Fla. 4th DCA October 18, 2017), the plaintiff homeowner's association incurred hurricane damages and sued for breach of the insurance contract. It also served a civil remedy notice of bad faith as required under Florida's Bad Faith Statute. However, the address to which it sent a copy may not have been the carrier's correct address.
Parenthetically, the carrier argued that the claimant could not prove that the claimant had actually sent a copy of the CRN to the carrier. It did not argue apparently that it had never received a copy, because eventually it did receive a copy. The carrier actually received a copy long before the claimant sued.
Although the Florida statute requires the claimant to provide a copy of the CRN to the insurance carrier, that requirement can be waived. That is what happened here, the Florida appellate court ruled. The effect was to reverse a summary judgment that the trial court had granted in favor of the insurance carrier in this case on the ground that proper notice had not been given to it.
In other words, waiving the CRN that the claimant waved meant that at least one obstacle to trial of a bad faith claim is no longer an obstacle in this case.
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