Fla. Plaintiffs Settle with State Farm on Hurricane Damaged Screen Enclosures

A Broward County Court has approved a class action settlement on behalf of more than 12,000 State Farm Insurance policyholders in Florida who will receive 100 percent of the damages they requested in a $6.8 million settlement of claims filed last year in which they alleged the insurer refused to pay replacement costs of screen enclosures damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, attorneys for the plaintiffs announced.

State Farm depreciated the cost of screen enclosures damaged by the hurricanes, allowing it to pay significant discounts to replace the screens. Attorneys for the plaintiffs at Lee & Amtzis and Kopelman & Blankman had argued that State Farm’s policy directly contravened the language of the policyholders’ agreements.

“The settlement approved by the court is significant in that more than 12,000 State Farm policyholders in Florida will be made completely whole,” said Eric Lee, lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “There have been many lawsuits against insurance companies related to hurricane damage, but few that have resulted in a complete recovery of the plaintiffs’ damages.”