When Swimming With Sharks, It Pays To Have A “Safe Harbor”

Jimmy Buffett’s “land sharks” in the song “Fins” weren’t the plaintiff’s bar, but Florida carriers often feel, as the song goes, like “the only bait in town.” While Florida is well known for many things, like Jimmy Buffet, beautiful beaches and warm sunny weather, it historically has been a challenging insurance marketplace for liability carriers who frequently find themselves having to quickly respond to unreasonable timed policy-limit demands. These timed demands, often colloquially referred to as “bad faith setups,” typically have three things in common, each of which creates risk for the carrier: (1) they were made very soon after an underlying claim took place; (2) they were typically made before the carrier was able to adequately investigate the facts and circumstances of the claim; and (3) and they provide a very short deadline for acceptance—in some cases a mere handful of days—combined with threats of insurer bad faith and extracontractual exposure should the carrier not