Episode 55: Episode 55 – Litigation Data Standard

The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates

One of the elements credited in the evolving success of Florida’s recent property insurance reforms is data collection and reporting. Property insurance companies are required to provide regulators with specific data on litigated claims. The number of lawsuits decreased significantly in 2024 as a result and with it, upward pressure on homeowners insurance rates.

Now there’s a push to implement a litigation data standard nationwide. Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sits down with CaseGlide CEO Wesley Todd who is behind the move, citing increasing nuclear verdicts and new challenges in other lines impacting insurance availability and affordability.

Show Notes

The podcast delves into the transformative changes in Florida's homeowners insurance litigation landscape, driven by legislative reforms and the critical role of data transparency. Wesley Todd said he formed Tampa-based CaseGlide in 2013 to bring greater transparency to insurance litigation through data analytics and “level the scales of justice. But what was missing was the ability to see what was happening, the ability to do something about it.” More than ten years later, he is continuing to emphasize the importance of data transparency in understanding litigation trends and improving the insurance industry's efficiency.

Todd told host Miller that the insurance industry today faces “an inflection point.” Nuclear verdicts, social inflation, and judicial activism have driven unprecedented litigation costs, destabilizing insurance companies’ ability to fulfill their fiduciary obligations. Meanwhile, plaintiff attorneys have transformed their practices with analytics, funding, and transparency, positioning themselves to maximize litigation outcomes “at the expense of insurers,” he said.

"I'm really sort of just giving the industry a heads-up that this is where we're headed if we're lucky, right? I mean otherwise it could be too late. It could be that insurance becomes unaffordable and unavailable in major lines like casualty, professional liability, just like we see in commercial auto, just like we saw temporarily in Florida," Todd said.

Todd discussed his recent policy paper that advocates for a data-driven approach to decision-making and highlights the need for standardized litigation data to support industry reforms and better serve consumers. He is urging insurance companies across the U.S. to implement a “Litigation Data Standard.” He describes it as a governance framework for collecting, auditing, and analyzing litigation data. This “institutional reform” would help realign insurance companies with their duties of compliance, reasonableness, and transparency, enabling them to meet regulatory expectations, counter judicial activism, and deliver legal services of comparable quality to their opponents in the plaintiff bar.
Todd’s concept is based on Florida’s litigation challenges. In 2021, Florida accounted for 7% of the nation’s homeowners insurance claims, yet 76% of the nation’s homeowners insurance lawsuits. The legislature passed a series of successive reforms from 2019 through 2023, including the elimination of one-way attorney fees for plaintiff attorneys to help fix the problem. (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/litigation-data-standard/)