One contested phrase in Florida's new bad-faith law, and a $2 million tender nobody will accept, has landed National Fire in federal court.
National Fire & Marine Insurance Company wants a Miami judge to declare that it complied with Florida's bad-faith "safe harbor," according to a declaratory judgment complaint filed July 2, 2026.
The case began with a tragedy. On or about April 22, 2025, a 5-year-old identified in the complaint only as M.A.B. drowned in the pool at the Tradewinds Apartment Hotel in Miami Beach, the filing states. The property was insured under a commercial general liability policy issued to South Beach Group Hotels, with limits of $2,000,000 per occurrence and $4,000,000 in the aggregate, the complaint says. Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company handles claims under the policy for National Fire.
Florida's 2023 tort reform gave insurers a shield: tender the limits fast enough and a bad-faith claim can't stick. The law, Fla. Stat. § 624.155(4)(a), bars a bad-faith action if the insurer tenders "the lesser of the policy limits or the amount demanded by the claimant within 90 days after receiving actual notice of a claim which is accompanied by sufficient evidence to support the amount of the claim."
Everything hinges on one question. When does the 90-day clock start - when the loss happens, or when someone names a number?
National Fire says it tendered the $2 million limits on October 15, 2025, and confirmed the offer five days later, telling the estate it was "well within the 90-day safe harbor window for tendering its limits." The estate pushed back on November 4, 2025, arguing the clock started in April 2025 when the incident occurred, the complaint says. South Beach Group Hotels offered a third date, May 9, 2025, the day of a joint inspection.
National Fire counters that no dollar demand arrived until May 13, 2026, so its tender came well inside the window. Either of the other readings, it argues, would expose it to liability beyond the policy limits.
For claims teams, the timing question is what matters. National Fire argues that if the clock can start before a claimant names a figure, an insurer could face bad-faith exposure before it even knows what "the amount demanded" is.
The allegations have not been tested, and no court has ruled on the correct reading of the statute or on whether National Fire complied.
