Professional Liability

The County Court for Broward County in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida is the latest jurisdiction to render a decision further upholding the requirements set forth within Section 627.7152, Florida Statutes, finding that a valid assignment of benefits must include an estimate which consists of a true itemized, per-unit breakdown of services and materials as required by law. Otherwise, the assignment of benefits fails to satisfy the statutory requirements, and the assignment is rendered invalid and unenforceable.

The underlying action concerned an assignment of benefits that attached a so-called “Itemized Per-Unit Cost Invoice” that consisted of bundled services, rather than a true itemized, per-unit breakdown of services and materials as required by law. As such, the court found the assignment of benefits is not valid or enforceable for purposes of pursuing insurance benefits under Section 627.7152. 

In making its determination, the court also reasoned that by providing the assignor with an invoice, the plaintiff failed to strictly comply with the statutory requirements within Section 627.7152(b), which specifically states that an “estimate” for services to be performed be provided, not an invoice. The court found that since an invoice is not an estimate, an invoice is not a substitute for the statutory requirement that valid assignment of benefits contain “a written, itemized, per-unit cost estimate of the services to be performed by the assignee.”

In reaching its decision, the court was concerned with whether the plaintiff’s invoice was bundling the services included in its invoice, a practice which contradicts the requirement for itemization set by the statute, making it impossible to discern the individual costs or to evaluate the necessity or reasonableness of each specific component. For instance, one of the line items in the plaintiff’s invoice bundled multiple services together at the rate of $1,500 for “pre-remediation and post-remediation inspection (if necessary), damage assessment, documentation, and report,” making it impossible to know the valuation of each individual service. As a result, the plaintiffs’ failure to provide an estimate with true, line-by-line itemization that allows a meaningful review of the reasonableness and necessity of the charges undermines the consumer protections of the statute. The county court entered final judgment in favor of the insurance carrier. 

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_{Legal Update for Florida Coverage & Property Litigation – September 2025 is prepared by Marshall Dennehey to provide information on recent legal developments of interest to our readers. This publication is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship. We would be pleased to provide such legal assistance as you require on these and other subjects when called upon. ATTORNEY ADVERTISING pursuant to New York RPC 7.1 Copyright © 2025 Marshall Dennehey, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted without the express written permission of our firm. For reprints or inquiries, or if you wish to be removed from this mailing list, contact tamontemuro@mdwcg.com.}