Florida's appeals court has reaffirmed that property insurers can argue late notice even after denying a claim on different grounds.
The Third District Court of Appeal issued a per curiam opinion on May 20, 2026, affirming a Miami-Dade Circuit Court ruling in favor of Florida Peninsula Insurance Company. The case was brought by A-Team Response Restoration Corp., suing as assignee of policyholder Orquidea Tzikas. Judges Logue, Gordo and Lobree decided together, without a single author.
The ruling itself is short. The body of precedent it relies on is what matters to claims teams.
The panel pointed first to Security First Insurance Co. v. Visca, a 2024 decision from Florida's Fourth DCA. According to the opinion, Visca held that a property insurer does not waive a late-notice defense – the argument that the policyholder reported the loss too late – simply because it initially denied the claim on different grounds, such as a policy exclusion. The reasoning, as summarized in the Visca passage cited by the Third DCA: denying a claim under a policy exclusion is the insurer telling the policyholder the loss falls outside the policy entirely, and that does not signal an intent to give up the right to prompt notice. The Third DCA also noted Visca's point that the defense was timely and properly raised early in the litigation.
For claims professionals, the takeaway is direct. Denying on one ground does not foreclose another, provided the late-notice defense is raised early enough in the case.
The opinion also cited Visca on timing. In hurricane cases, Florida courts have generally treated the insured's initial discovery of damage as the moment the duty to notify the insurer kicks in, at least when damage appears shortly after the storm. The Visca passage the Third DCA relied on also makes clear that a later delay is not excused just because the insured thought the damage was not bad enough to justify a claim.
The panel then stacked up its own prior rulings on a second point: the presumption of prejudice.
Citing American Integrity Insurance Co. v. Estrada, the court reaffirmed that once an insurer establishes the insured failed to substantially comply with a post-loss obligation under the policy, prejudice to the insurer is presumed – and the burden shifts to the insured to show the insurer was not actually prejudiced.
The opinion also cited Nunez v. Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co., where the Third DCA found that an insured's failure to submit to a requested examination under oath was a willful and material breach of the policy's post-loss provisions, again shifting the burden to the insured.
From 1500 Coral Towers Condo. Association v. Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the court drew the point that while the question of whether the insured has rebutted the presumption of prejudice usually goes to a jury, it can be decided on summary judgment when the insured does not put forward enough evidence to overcome it.
And from Perez v. Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the panel reinforced that a wholly conclusory expert affidavit is not enough to create a genuine issue of fact and defeat the presumption.
A-Team Response Restoration Corp. sued under an assignment of benefits, the mechanism that lets a third party step into a policyholder's shoes and pursue a claim directly against the carrier.
