When an insurance company came after two uninsured motorists with a six-figure demand, we at Harris Guidi Rosner, P.A. (HGR) didn’t just mount a defense. We flipped the case entirely on its head. Through sharp legal analysis and a strategic offensive maneuver, Chase Harris and our team walked away having recovered 100% of our clients’ defense costs, leaving the plaintiff insurer with nothing.
The Setup: A Years-Old Accident, a Late-Filed Lawsuit
The case stemmed from a motor vehicle accident that occurred on November 6, 2017, in Fort Myers, Florida. At the time of the crash, our clients were uninsured. The opposing driver alleged injuries as a result of the collision, and years later, on June 21, 2021, that driver’s insurance carrier paid out $100,000 in uninsured motorist (UM) benefits.
Having made that payment, the insurer turned its sights on our clients, seeking to recover the full $100,000 through a subrogation lawsuit. There was just one significant problem: the insurer didn’t file suit until June 2025, nearly eight years after the underlying accident.
The Defense: A Statute of Limitations That Couldn’t Be Ignored
Florida law provides a four-year statute of limitations for actions of this nature. The critical question before the court was when that clock began running, and Chase Harris had a clear answer. We argued that the limitations period was triggered on the date of the accident itself, November 6, 2017, not the date the UM benefits were paid in 2021. Under that straightforward reading of the law, the insurer’s lawsuit, filed in June 2025, was more than three years too late.
The insurer disputed this interpretation and pressed forward, pursuing full recovery of the $100,000 as litigation unfolded over nearly a year. The plaintiff made progressively lower settlement demands as the case developed, a sign that the strength of our defense was registering, but the insurer was not yet ready to walk away.
The Offensive Move: A Proposal for Settlement
Rather than simply waiting out the litigation, Chase Harris took an affirmative step that changed the entire dynamic of the case. We filed a Proposal for Settlement, a strategic tool under Florida law that, when properly deployed, can expose an opposing party to liability for attorneys’ fees if they reject a reasonable settlement offer and then fail to obtain a significantly better result at trial.
By filing the Proposal for Settlement against the insurer on the strength of the statute-of-limitations defense, we put the insurer in a difficult position: continue pursuing a claim that faced a strong legal bar and risk being on the hook for our clients’ mounting attorneys’ fees, or come to the table.
The Result: A Complete Victory for the Clients
The insurer ultimately relented. Rather than continue pressing a claim it was increasingly unlikely to win, the insurer agreed to resolve the matter by paying our clients the full amount of the attorneys’ fees they had incurred defending the lawsuit.
The outcome could not have been more favorable. Instead of our clients facing a $100,000 judgment against them, we secured a complete reversal, recovering every dollar of defense fees our clients had spent fighting the case. A claim that began as a significant financial threat ended with the opposing insurer writing a check to our clients.
A Lesson in Strategic Defense
This case illustrates something we at Harris Guidi Rosner, P.A. understand well: a strong defense is not purely reactive. By identifying a compelling statute-of-limitations argument early and then leveraging Florida’s fee-shifting framework through a Proposal for Settlement, we transformed a defensive posture into an offensive one and delivered an outcome that far exceeded simply avoiding liability.
For individuals facing subrogation claims or other actions by insurance carriers, this case is a powerful reminder that the right legal strategy, pursued with precision and confidence, can make all the difference.
Facing a claim from an insurance company? Don’t go it alone. At Harris Guidi Rosner, P.A., we fight to protect our clients from aggressive insurers — and as this case shows, we don’t just defend, we win. Request your free case review today and let us put our experience to work for you.
