A Florida roofing contractor says its insurers didn't just fight its claims - they spent six years trying to destroy its business. 

SFR Services and its owner sued Tower Hill Insurance Group and several affiliated carriers in federal court in Fort Lauderdale on August 13, 2026. The suit also names the carriers' law firm and three individuals: a Tower Hill investigations official and two Florida state investigators. The complaint brings federal and Florida racketeering claims, plus fraud, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process. 

It starts with Hurricane Irma in 2017. According to the filing, the Tower Hill entities settled hundreds of storm-damage claims between roughly 2018 and 2022, and the contractor signed releases believing those disputes were finished. 

They weren't, the complaint alleges. In 2020, the carriers sued in state court to recover what they had paid - about $20 million, or roughly $60 million with treble damages, the figures the filing attributes to that original demand. The complaint claims the insurers "manufactured their own alleged damages" by settling the claims first, then suing to recover the same money plus triple damages and fees. 

Much of the case turns on how the carriers were staffed. The filing alleges none of the carrier plaintiffs had any employees, and that Tower Hill Insurance Group, acting as managing general agent, ran the lawsuit. It quotes deposition testimony from a corporate representative that "nobody reviewed the lawsuit before it was filed." 

The complaint leans on testimony from the carriers' own adjusters. It says they testified they treated the contractor's claims like any other hurricane claim, were never told the contractor was committing fraud, and were never pressured to pay. One litigation adjuster, according to the filing, testified he "never made any determinations that the estimates were fraudulent in any way." A claims examiner is quoted describing how the carrier handles large pricing gaps: it orders a quality-control estimate and pays on that verified figure. 

Roof pricing sits at the center of the dispute. The complaint says the carriers treated the contractor's estimates above a set per-square price as fraudulent, but that a witness from the carriers' fraud unit testified $1,800 to $2,200 per square "is not per se fraudulent without more information." 

Then comes the allegation aimed most directly at claims professionals. The complaint says the carriers and their firm used the civil suit as a discovery tool to feed material to Florida's Department of Financial Services, in an effort to get the contractor's owner prosecuted. It alleges the carriers' special investigations unit was the point of contact for that coordination and, on at least one occasion, asked the agency to "delete" evidence it had been emailed. 

The state charged the owner in 2023, according to the filing, which alleges he faced decades in prison. The complaint says the case was dismissed about a week before trial, and that officials described the reason as a lack of evidence. 

The filing also alleges the insurers used the criminal case as leverage - offering to help end it if the contractor settled the civil case in the carriers' favor. It reproduces a state plea offer that would have barred the owner from holding a contractor's license or working in the finance or insurance-adjusting fields. 

SFR says the effort destroyed its business and cost it "over $1.5 Million in attorneys' fees and costs" defending the state case, particularly two severed actions, TH Select and Omega, which the complaint says the carriers dismissed in 2026 after more than six years. 

The allegations have not been tested, and no court has ruled on any of the claims.