Kelley Kronenberg Partner Christian Williams secured final summary judgment in favor of Florida Insurance Guaranty Association in the Circuit Court of the Fifth Judicial Circuit in Hernando County, Florida, dismissing a first-party property breach of contract action filed by a restoration company that had obtained an assignment of benefits from the insured.

The plaintiff, an AOB company, filed suit against FIGA claiming it had standing to pursue the insured’s property insurance claim by virtue of an assignment of benefits agreement executed on July 26, 2021. Because that agreement was executed after July 1, 2019, it was governed by Section 627.7152 of the Florida Statutes, the AOB reform law enacted in 2019, which sets out specific requirements an assignment must meet to be valid and enforceable.

Christian moved for summary judgment on three independent grounds, each of which independently rendered the assignment invalid. First, the assignment failed to contain a written, itemized, per-unit cost estimate of the services to be performed. The plaintiff’s purported estimate was identical across two separate assignments covering different services, which the Court found was nothing more than a price list, not a compliant itemized estimate. Second, the assignment’s hold harmless provision was drafted in a way that conditioned the assignee’s indemnity obligation on the policy prohibiting the assignment, rendering it noncompliant with the statutory requirement that the assignee indemnify and hold harmless the assignor from all liabilities and costs. Third, and most significantly, the hold harmless provision functioned as a penalty for rescission. Because it would be triggered any time the insured sought to cancel the agreement, it violated the statute’s express prohibition on penalties or fees for rescission.

The Court found the assignment invalid and unenforceable on all three grounds. Because the assignment was void from the outset, the plaintiff never acquired standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place. Under Florida law, standing must exist at the inception of a case and cannot be cured after the fact. The Court entered final summary judgment in FIGA’s favor, dismissed the case with prejudice, and reserved jurisdiction on FIGA’s entitlement to attorney’s fees and costs under multiple statutory bases including Sections 627.7152(10), 768.79, and 57.041.

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