A Florida appeals court revived Citizens Property Insurance's claim to attorney's fees, ruling its $100 settlement offer was made in good faith.
On Aug. 19, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court that had blocked the insurer from recovering fees and sent the case back with instructions to grant them.
The fight grew out of a standard homeowners policy. In September 2019, the policyholders reported property damage from Hurricane Irma, which had struck Florida two years earlier in September 2017. The policy required them to give prompt notice of any loss and to hand over documents when Citizens asked. They did neither, and Citizens denied the claim.
The homeowners sued for breach of contract, attaching a public adjuster's estimate that put the damage at $141,580.36.
In March 2021, Citizens offered each plaintiff $100 to settle. The homeowners rejected it. The trial court then granted Citizens summary judgment. Under Florida's offer-of-judgment law, section 768.79, a party who turns down such an offer and loses can be forced to pay the other side's attorney's fees.
Citizens asked for those fees. The trial court refused, finding the $100 offer wasn't made in good faith - in part because Citizens hadn't sought any discovery before making it.
The appeals court disagreed. Good faith, it held, requires only "some reasonable foundation on which to base an offer." Citizens had one: the homeowners waited two years to report the claim and never produced the requested documents - the same grounds on which Citizens denied coverage.
The court also rejected the argument that the adjuster's six-figure estimate proved real exposure. What counted was the substance of the reason for the low offer, not its timing or the size of the claimed loss. The court pointed to a very similar 2013 case, State Farm Florida Insurance Company v. Laughlin-Alfonso, where it had reached the same conclusion.
The ruling is not final until the court disposes of any timely motion for rehearing.
