2026-09-10 · Florida · Courts

What happened. Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal reinstated a condominium association's hurricane claim that had been dismissed with prejudice as time-barred, holding that the association had pleaded facts capable of avoiding the five-year limitations period because the insurer's own delay had prevented it from suing in time.

Hypoluxo Mariner's Cay Condominium Association, Inc. v. Underwriters at Lloyd's London, National Fire & Marine Insurance Company, and QBE Specialty Insurance Company, No. 4D2024-2250, was decided on 1 April 2026 (Shepherd, J., with Forst and Klingensmith, JJ.), on appeal from the Palm Beach Circuit Court.¹

The mechanism

The association pleaded that it timely reported its Hurricane Irma loss and filed a sworn proof of loss; that Underwriters never made the coverage determination required within 90 days by s. 627.70131(5)(a) as it then stood; and that Underwriters “repeatedly required additional examinations and investigative steps not required under the policy before issuing a coverage decision.”

Because a coverage determination is a condition precedent to suit under s. 627.70152(3)(a), the court accepted that “those delays prevented the Association from initiating litigation before the limitations period expired.”

The sequence is stark: Underwriters denied coverage roughly a month after the five-year period in s. 95.11(2)(e) had run. Suit followed three days later.

The pleading standard

“Even then, dismissal is improper if the complaint suggests the possibility that the plaintiff could allege facts in avoidance of the limitations defense.”

That sentence is the practical holding. A limitations defence is not automatically fatal at the pleading stage where the complaint suggests facts in avoidance — and, importantly, the association's first complaint did not contain them while its amended complaint did.

One question the court deliberately left open

Underwriters argued late in the appeal that s. 95.11(2)(e) is a statute of repose rather than a statute of limitations — a distinction that matters enormously, because equitable doctrines generally cannot extend a repose period. The court declined to reach it via the tipsy coachman doctrine and remanded it for the trial court in the first instance.

That is not a small reservation. If the repose argument succeeds below, much of the practical value of this decision could be narrowed.

1. Hypoluxo Mariner's Cay Condominium Association, Inc. v. Underwriters at Lloyd's London, No. 4D2024-2250 (Fla. 4th DCA 1 April 2026) ↩
2. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Property Insurance Stability Report, 1 July 2026 ↩