Can You Sue an Insurance Company For Taking Too Long?

You filed your claim. You sent the photos, answered every question, and waited as weeks turned into months. Now you’re staring at the same status update, wondering whether this is normal or whether something has gone wrong.

Most people in your position aren’t angry yet. They’re unsure. You might be asking yourself, “Am I being impatient?” or “Will pushing back hurt my claim?” Those are fair questions, and you deserve a clear answer.

Here is the short version. In Florida, you can sometimes sue an insurance company that delays your claim without a good reason. Not every delay is a legal problem; some are routine. But Florida law sets firm deadlines, and when an insurer ignores them, the delay can become a signal that something isn’t right. Knowing where that line sits is the first step toward protecting yourself.

If your claim has stalled and you can’t get a straight answer, it helps to talk with a Florida property insurance attorney early, before deadlines pass and before you accept less than you’re owed.

How Long Should an Insurance Claim Take in Florida?

Florida law gives insurers specific deadlines, and those deadlines got shorter in 2023. Under Florida Statute 627.70131, reformed by Senate Bill 2-A in late 2022 and carried into the 2023 statutes, your insurer has to keep a property claim moving within set windows.

Here is what the law currently requires:

• Acknowledge your claim within 7 calendar days of receiving it. The old deadline was 14 days.
• Begin investigating and complete any physical inspection within 30 days. That window used to be 45 days.
• Pay or deny your claim, in full or in part, within 60 days of getting notice of it. The old deadline was 90 days.

If your insurer pays late, interest can start adding up from the day you first filed. The law allows one main exception: if something genuinely outside the insurer’s control stops it from paying, the clock can pause; the insurer then has to act within 15 days after that obstacle clears.

These deadlines are the floor, not the finish line. A simple claim might resolve well inside 60 days. A larger or disputed loss can take longer for honest reasons. The deadlines matter because they give you a measuring stick. When an insurer blows past them with no real explanation, you’ve moved from simply waiting to watching a warning sign.

How Long Is Too Long When It Comes to Insurance Claims?

There’s no single magic number, but the 60-day mark is a meaningful one. If your claim has been under review for months with no payment, no denial, and no clear reason for the holdup, that delay deserves a closer look. The same is true when every update sounds identical and nothing actually moves. A claim that sits “under review” indefinitely may not be a claim that’s being handled; it’s possibly a claim being parked.

Why Insurance Claims Sometimes Take Longer Than Expected

Delay isn’t always a sign of bad faith. Some claims are genuinely complicated, and a careful insurer needs time to get the numbers right. Large losses, structural damage, and disagreements over what actually caused the damage all add steps. A missing document or an unsigned form can stall a file through no fault of the insurer.

Other delays are harder to explain. You may notice your file being handed to a new adjuster who seems to start over from scratch. You may be asked for the same documents you already sent. You may get a long stretch of silence followed by an offer that doesn’t come close to your repair costs. None of these moves is automatically illegal, but a pattern of them can point to an insurer that is slow-walking your claim rather than working it.

An investigative mindset helps here. Keep asking one quiet question: is each delay tied to a real, explainable reason, or is the reason always vague? Honest delays come with specifics. Unreasonable ones tend to come with fog.

Claim Delayed After a Hurricane

Florida insurers handle enormous volumes of weather claims, and a single storm can swamp them. High volume is a real strain, but it doesn’t suspend the law. The 30-day inspection window and the 60-day decision deadline still apply to hurricane and windstorm claims. If your home was damaged in a storm and your insurer has gone quiet for weeks past those deadlines, the surge in claims is an explanation, not an excuse.

Insurance Claim Stuck After Inspection

An inspection can feel like the finish line, so it’s frustrating when nothing follows it. The adjuster came, looked at the damage, took photos, and then the file went silent. The thing to remember is that the inspection does not stop the clock. Once your insurer has notice of the claim, the 60-day deadline to pay or deny keeps running, inspection or not.

Can You Sue an Insurance Company for Delay in Florida?

Yes, and there are two main ways an insurance claim delay lawsuit can take shape.

The first is a breach of contract claim. Your policy is a contract; you paid your premiums, and the insurer agreed to cover certain losses. When the company fails to pay what it owes, or drags the process out so long that it amounts to a refusal, you can sue to enforce the policy. The delay is part of the story, but the heart of the case is the money you’re owed under the contract.

The second is a bad faith claim under Florida Statute 624.155. Bad faith looks at how the insurer treated you: whether it investigated fairly, communicated honestly, and paid what it reasonably should have. Florida tightened this area through House Bill 837 in 2023. Carelessness by the insurer is no longer enough on its own; you generally have to show the company acted unreasonably under the full circumstances. A bad faith claim also usually comes after you’ve established that benefits were owed in the first place, so the two paths often work in sequence rather than side by side.

It’s worth being honest about what this means for you. Delay alone doesn’t guarantee a winning lawsuit. What matters is whether the delay was unreasonable and whether the insurer owed you money it didn’t pay. An attorney who handles these cases can look at your timeline and tell you, plainly, which side of that line you’re on.

Can I Force My Insurance Company to Respond?

You have more leverage than it feels like. A clear written demand, sent and dated, creates a record. If the silence continues, Florida law gives you a formal tool: a Civil Remedy Notice, filed with the state’s Department of Financial Services, which puts the insurer on notice of a possible bad faith violation and gives it 60 days to fix the problem. Insurers often move faster once that notice lands, or once they learn an experienced attorney is reviewing the file. Pressure, applied correctly, tends to get answers.

What to Do Before Filing an Insurance Claim Lawsuit

A lawsuit is a step, not a starting point. Before you get there, a few habits protect your position and strengthen your case:

• Build a timeline. Write down every call, email, inspection, and promise, with dates attached. A clean record is powerful.
• Keep everything in writing. Follow up phone calls with a short email confirming what was said.
• Don’t accept a lowball just to end the wait. Once you sign a release, it’s very hard to undo.
• Get your own estimate. An independent contractor or public adjuster can show what the repair really costs.
• Watch your deadlines. In Florida, you generally have to report a new property claim within one year of the date of loss, so don’t let the time quietly run out.

Florida also requires a specific step before you sue a property insurer. Under Florida Statute 627.70152, you must send the company a written pre-suit notice at least 10 business days before filing, spelling out the dispute and the amount in question. The insurer then has 10 business days to respond with an inspection, an offer, or a denial. Missing this step can get a lawsuit dismissed, which is one more reason to have someone who knows the process guiding you. If your claim is already stuck, our team explains what to do when an insurer is stalling and where the legal lines fall.

Talk to a Florida Insurance Attorney About Your Delayed Claim

You don’t have to figure this out alone, and you don’t have to wait until you’re certain something is wrong. If your Florida property claim has stalled past the deadlines, or every update leaves you more confused than the last, that uncertainty is itself worth a conversation.

Levin Litigation helps Florida homeowners and businesses push back against unfair delays, denials, and underpayments. If your claim is stuck, don’t sit on it. Fill out this form for a free review of where your claim stands and what comes next.