An Attorney for Florida Contractors, Roofers, and Restoration Pros
Two insurance-related problems land on a Florida contractor’s desk, and they point at two different opponents. Your customer’s claim gets denied or underpaid: that fight is with the insurance company, and Florida law bars you from stepping into it yourself. And you finish the work but do not get paid: that fight is with the owner, the general contractor, or the surety, and Florida’s lien and bond statutes give you real leverage if you hit the deadlines.
We are Cory Cannon, a Tampa Bay property damage firm. Two things to know up front. First, we do not adjust insurance claims, and neither can you: that line is drawn by statute, and crossing it puts your license at risk. When your customer’s claim goes sideways, the lawful move is a referral: your customer contacts a lawyer directly and decides for themselves. Second, your own receivables are ordinary construction-law work (Notice to Owner, claim of lien, bond claims, prompt-payment interest), and those may be handled on contingency, stated plainly before you engage us. Below is where the line sits, how a lawful referral works under the Bar rules, and a deadline desk card you can bookmark.
Findings Summary
- You may not adjust, negotiate, or interpret your customer’s insurance claim. Fla. Stat. 489.147(2)(d) bars a contractor from adjusting a claim or advising an insured about coverage without a public adjuster license; doing that for compensation is unlicensed public adjusting under Fla. Stat. 626.854.
- Roof-specific: 489.147(2)(b) bars offering to waive, pay, or rebate a customer’s insurance deductible, and 489.147(2)(a) bars prohibited claim-solicitation advertising.
- The assignment-of-benefits route is closed. A policyholder cannot assign post-loss property insurance benefits under any policy issued on or after January 1, 2023 (Fla. Stat. 627.7152); an attempt to do so is void.
- A claim has crossed into legal territory when the carrier denies on an engineer report, pays below your documented scope, misses the 627.70131 60-day pay-or-deny deadline, or nears the 627.70132 notice bars: 1 year for original or reopened notice, 18 months for supplemental notice, each after the date of loss.
- Your own money runs on construction deadlines: Notice to Owner within 45 days (713.06), claim of lien within 90 days of final furnishing (713.08), one year to foreclose (713.22), and bond notices under 713.23 (private) or 255.05 (public).
- We pay nothing for referrals. Florida Bar Rule 4-7.17(b) forbids it. Your customer chooses counsel freely and contacts us directly.
The Line You Can’t Cross
You can inspect a roof, document the damage, write an estimate, and do the repair. What Florida law does not let you do is work your customer’s insurance claim. Section 489.147(2)(d) prohibits a contractor from interpreting policy provisions, advising an insured about coverages or duties under the policy, or adjusting a claim on the insured’s behalf, unless the contractor also holds a public adjuster license. Do any of that for money, commission, or anything of value and you are engaged in the unlicensed practice of public adjusting under Fla. Stat. 626.854. That is the reason “let me handle the adjuster for you” is a sentence a Florida contractor should never say.
Roofing carries two more specific bars. Section 489.147(2)(b) prohibits offering a residential owner a rebate, gift, or the waiver or payment of any insurance deductible in exchange for a roof inspection or a roof claim, and knowingly paying, waiving, or rebating a deductible is insurance fraud, a third-degree felony. Section 489.147(2)(a) prohibits soliciting an owner through a “prohibited advertisement” that pushes a roof claim without the disclosures the statute requires, including that the owner owes the deductible. Finally, the assignment-of-benefits workaround is gone: under Fla. Stat. 627.7152, a policyholder cannot assign post-loss benefits under any residential or commercial policy issued on or after January 1, 2023, so you can no longer take an assignment and stand in the customer’s shoes against the carrier.
None of this stops your customer from getting real help. You fix roofs. When a claim turns into a coverage or payment dispute, that fight belongs with a lawyer, and the choice of lawyer belongs to your customer alone. If they ask you for a name, you are free to give one. Either way, the fight moves to the party it belongs against, which is the insurance company.
When a Claim Crosses Into Legal Territory
You can see a bad claim taking shape from the roof. The question is whether it is still a paperwork problem your customer can push through or a legal fight. Every row here is a dispute between your customer and their insurer, not between you and anyone.
| What you are seeing on the job | Why it is now a legal fight with the carrier | Where to read more |
|---|---|---|
| Claim denied after the carrier’s engineer inspected the roof | Whether creasing or cracking is wind damage or wear is a causation-and-coverage question, tested with evidence, not a repair question | what a carrier engineer inspection means and denied-claim strategy |
| Payment came in far below your written scope; matching or code upgrades ignored | Underpayment on an accepted claim runs on the policy’s replacement-cost, matching, and ordinance-and-law terms | underpaid-claim review |
| Carrier is past the 60-day pay-or-deny window with no decision | A missed 627.70131 deadline is a prompt-pay violation; interest accrues and the delay becomes part of the file | what to do after a denial or stall |
| The customer is nearing the deadline to report the claim to the insurer | Miss the 627.70132 notice window and the claim is barred outright: no repair scope saves it | this one is about time, not paperwork; it needs attention immediately |
If your customer asks who can help, our phone number is public and so is our guide to a denied homeowners insurance claim. That is all there is to give: no script, no claim form, no pitch on our behalf. Your customer calls or does not, and your customer decides. That restraint is what keeps a referral clean under the rules explained next.
How a Referral Works
This part is governed by the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, so we state it plainly. The decision to refer is yours and your customer’s: never ours to engineer through you. We do not solicit clients through contractors. There are no scripts for your sales crew, no pitch sheets or claim-referral packets branded to us, no leave-behind brochures that read as our advertising, and no “tell them we sent you” arrangement of any kind. Rule 4-7.18 forbids a lawyer from soliciting prospective clients by proxy; Rule 4-7.22 forbids compensating a nonlawyer for channeling clients. So there is no referral fee, no per-file payment, and no bonus running in either direction: offering or accepting one would be a disciplinary problem for us and a problem for you.
What the relationship actually is: when a claim has crossed into a coverage or payment dispute, your customer may hear from you that a lawyer is an option, and if they ask for a name you are free to give one, ours or anyone’s. Then you step back. Your customer contacts the firm directly and chooses freely whether to talk to us and whether to hire us. You refer a matter; we evaluate it; the customer decides. That is the whole mechanism, and keeping it that simple is what protects your license.
Your Own Money: Liens, Bonds, and Prompt Payment
Your receivables are a different fight with a different opponent, and here Florida law is on your side if you move on time. This is contract-and-collection work against the owner, the general contractor, or the surety, never against the insurance company. The construction lien statutes in Chapter 713 give you security against the property itself, and they run on hard deadlines with no grace for a missed date.
The sequence in plain terms: if you are not in direct contract with the owner, you preserve your lien rights by serving a Notice to Owner within 45 days of first furnishing labor or materials (Fla. Stat. 713.06). When the work is done and you are still unpaid, you record a claim of lien within 90 days of your final furnishing (Fla. Stat. 713.08). A recorded lien is enforceable for one year, and you protect it by filing a foreclosure action within that year, a window that collapses to just 60 days if the owner serves a Notice of Contest of Lien (Fla. Stat. 713.22).
Where the job is bonded, you look to the bond instead of the property. On a private project, a payment bond claim under Fla. Stat. 713.23 requires a notice to the contractor within 45 days of first furnishing (if you are not in privity) and a sworn notice of nonpayment no later than 90 days after final furnishing; public projects run on the parallel structure in Fla. Stat. 255.05. And on any written improvement contract, late payment accrues statutory interest under the Construction Contract Prompt Payment Law (Fla. Stat. 715.12), a lever most owners do not expect.
One flip-side to watch: if the paperwork on your desk is a defect claim against your work, that is Chapter 558 territory, with its own 60-day pre-suit notice-and-cure process (120 days when the claimant is an association representing more than 20 parcels). Our explainer on the Florida 558 notice walks through what to do when one arrives; do not ignore it, and do not answer it without reading it first.
Contingency may be available. We may advance case costs. In certain circumstances, you may be responsible for case costs under your written agreement or the opposing party’s attorney’s fees or costs under applicable law, even without a recovery. The terms are set in a written agreement before we start. Separately, a proposal for settlement under Fla. Stat. 768.79 is a served offer that can shift fees from the offer forward.
Florida Contractor Deadline Desk Card
A bookmarkable reference for the two clocks that run on an insurance-adjacent job: your money and your customer’s claim. Each citation links to the current statute on Online Sunshine. These are general deadlines; the exact date on your file depends on your facts.
Your Money: Liens, Bonds, and Payment
| Statute | Trigger | Deadline | If missed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 713.06 | First furnishing labor or materials (lienor not in privity with the owner) | Serve Notice to Owner within 45 days | No construction lien rights |
| 713.08(5) | Final furnishing of labor or materials | Record claim of lien within 90 days | Lien invalid |
| 713.22 | Recording the claim of lien | File foreclosure within 1 year, or within 60 days if a Notice of Contest of Lien is served | Lien extinguished |
| 713.23 | Private-project payment bond (not in privity) | Notice to contractor within 45 days of first furnishing; sworn notice of nonpayment within 90 days of final furnishing; suit within 1 year | No recovery on the bond |
| 255.05 | Public-project payment bond (not in privity) | Notice to contractor within 45 days of first furnishing; sworn notice of nonpayment within 90 days of final furnishing; suit within 1 year | No recovery on the bond |
| 715.12 | Payment past due on a written improvement contract | Prompt-payment interest accrues (s. 55.03 rate plus 12% per annum) | Interest left on the table |
| 558.004 | A construction-defect claim is served on you | 60-day pre-suit notice-and-cure window (120 days for an association of more than 20 parcels) | Skipping the process can derail or delay the later suit |
Your Customer’s Claim: Insurance Deadlines
| Statute | Trigger | Deadline | If missed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 627.70132 | Date of loss | For policies issued or renewed after December 16, 2022: original and reopened notice within 1 year after the date of loss; supplemental notice (additional loss or damage from the same peril the insurer already adjusted, or repair costs under an open claim reported on time) within 18 months after the date of loss. Policies issued or renewed on or before that date carry longer periods, generally 2 years and 3 years. | Claim barred |
| 627.70131 | Insurer receives notice of the claim | Payment or denial within 60 days for residential claims and commercial structures or premises no larger than 10,000 square feet; multistate nonresidential policies excluded | Prompt-pay violation; interest accrues from the notice date |
| 95.11(2)(e) | Date of loss | 5 years to sue the insurer for breach of the policy | Claim time-barred |
The bottom table is your customer’s ledger, not yours. You cannot act on those dates for them: that is exactly the line 489.147 and 626.854 draw.
Working With the Firm
There are two ways this firm ends up in a contractor’s orbit, and they map to the two problems at the top of this page. Your customer’s insurance dispute: our number and the denied-claim guide are public, and customers who need us find us on their own. Or your own receivable: a lien to record, a bond claim to preserve, an invoice an owner will not pay, or a 558 notice that just landed.
Start with our construction litigation practice for the full lien and bond picture, or our resources library for the deadline calculators and statute explainers your customers ask about, and reach out when your own matter is ready.