Florida property owners buy insurance for Florida buildings, pay premiums from Florida, suffer hurricane losses in Florida, hire Florida contractors, and have their claims adjusted by Florida-licensed adjusters. Yet, it is becoming far more common for excess and surplus lines carriers to point to a buried endorsement that says if there is a legal dispute, the matter must be litigated in a faraway place, and typically in New York. Why are Florida’s political leaders and insurance regulators not speaking up against this?
I have written about forum selection clauses before. They are not small print trivia. They can decide where the case is heard, what law applies, how expensive the dispute becomes, and whether an insured can realistically dispute a claim underpayment or denial. For a multinational corporation with a risk management department and lawyers negotiating manuscript policy terms, that may be one thing. For a Florida church, condominium association, restaurant, small business, nonprofit, or family-owned property company, it is something else entirely.
The latest example is Church of God Florida State Offices, Inc. v. Mt. Hawley Insurance Company. 1 The church insured property in Wimauma, Florida. Hurricane Milton allegedly caused substantial wind and water damage. Mt. Hawley opened coverage for a fraction of the claimed loss. The church sued in Hillsborough County. Mt. Hawley removed the case to federal court and then asked that the case be transferred to the Southern District of New York because the policy contained a forum selection clause and a New York choice-of-law clause.
The federal court granted the motion. The court’s order is not surprising under current federal law. Once a forum selection clause is deemed valid, the Supreme Court’s Atlantic Marine decision makes it very difficult for an insured to keep the case at home. Courts essentially say Florida’s laws and insurance leaders have not clearly declared that these clauses are against Florida public policy.
The problem is the legislature and Florida’s Insurance Commissioner should make laws and regulations that plainly say these clauses are illegal because they are against public policy. Florida should prohibit excess and surplus lines insurers from forcing Florida policyholders to litigate first-party property insurance disputes in distant states, unless the policyholder is a truly sophisticated large commercial insured that knowingly and separately agrees to that term. A Florida church is not a multinational conglomerate. A condominium association is not a global shipping company. A restaurant owner buying surplus lines wind coverage is not negotiating venue like a Fortune 100 risk manager.
This is not a complicated public policy issue. If a carrier wants to sell insurance covering Florida property, collect Florida premiums, and profit from Florida’s distressed insurance marketplace, it should be willing to answer in Florida when it is accused of failing to pay a Florida claim.
Other states understand this. Washington law prohibits insurance contracts delivered or issued for delivery in Washington and covering Washington risks from requiring another state’s law or depriving Washington courts of jurisdiction over actions against the insurer. Louisiana has also taken steps in its surplus lines statutory scheme to keep certain disputes arising under surplus lines contracts tied to the place where the cause of action arose. Florida can do the same.
So, why has Florida not done it? Where is Florida Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky on this issue? Why has the Office of Insurance Regulation not publicly called out these out-of-state forum selection clauses in surplus lines property policies? Why is there not a legislative proposal backed by Florida’s insurance regulator stating that Florida policyholders who insure Florida property should not be shipped to New York, Illinois, Nebraska, Utah, or anywhere else merely because a non-admitted carrier inserted a one-sided endorsement into a take-it-or-leave-it policy?
The excess and surplus lines market has become the escape hatch from accountability. We are repeatedly told that Florida needs this market because admitted carriers will not write certain risks. While that may be true, it is not a reason to allow abuse by a market that is becoming bolder and more arrogant as it grows. The fact that policyholders are forced into the surplus lines market makes consumer protection more important, not less.
Surplus lines carriers are not charitable rescuers. They are paid premiums, often very high premiums, to take risks. They are making money in a market where their products have to be sold by a Florida licensed surplus lines agent. They and their agents should not be allowed to take the money from Florida and then force the policyholder to leave Florida to obtain justice.
The practical effect of these clauses is obvious. They increase litigation costs, disrupt the insured’s chosen counsel, and create leverage for lower settlements. They separate the dispute from the community where the loss occurred. They move a local hurricane claim away from the people, property, witnesses, adjusters, contractors, and courts most connected to the controversy. This is not freedom of contract in any meaningful sense. It is regulatory arbitrage.
Florida has spent years debating insurance reform. Much of that debate has focused on lawsuits, fees, roof claims, contractors, public adjusters, and policyholder behavior. But where is the equal scrutiny of policy provisions designed to make it harder for Florida policyholders to enforce the very contracts they paid for? Why doesn’t Yaworsky meet with policyholder groups and explain why he says nothing about this type of abuse?
If Florida’s leaders are serious about stabilizing the insurance market, they should start with a simple principle that Florida insurance disputes involving Florida property should be resolved in Florida unless a sophisticated commercial insured knowingly agrees otherwise. The case should not be viewed as an isolated procedural ruling. Florida policyholders are being pushed into the excess and surplus lines market, stripped of many protections, and then told they must chase justice in a distant forum selected by the insurer.
Florida’s Insurance Commissioner should publicly oppose this practice. Florida legislators should outlaw it. The Office of Insurance Regulation should support a statute making any forum selection or choice-of-law clause void when it requires a Florida policyholder with a Florida property loss to sue outside Florida or apply another state’s law to the claim, except for truly negotiated large commercial risks of a multinational business.
Insurance is supposed to provide security. It should not become a scavenger hunt for justice across state lines.
For readers interested in this topic, I suggest reading Forum Selection Clauses and One-Year Suit Limitations: A Dangerous Insurance Trap, Forum Selection Clauses Are Valid In Florida, and an article I wrote 17 years ago, Forum Selection Clauses: They’re Kind of a Big Deal.
Thought For The Day
“Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.”
—Plato
1 Church of God Florida State Offices v. Mt. Hawley Ins. Co., No. 8:25-cv-3199 (M.D. Fla. June 3, 2026). See Mt. Hawley Motion for Change of Venue and Church of God Response in Opposition.