Yes, in most cases, and a ruling from Florida’s Supreme Court this week just made that answer clearer if your policy is a few years old.
What Did the Florida Supreme Court Just Decide?
On October 22, the court ruled on a case called Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company v. Hughes, case number SC2024-0025. The question was whether a 2021 law requiring you to send your insurer a formal notice before you sue applies to policies written before that law existed. The court said no, unanimously. If your policy was issued before July 1, 2021, you don’t have to send that notice first. You can go straight to filing suit.
Rebecca Hughes had a water damage claim from 2019 and a policy that ran out in April 2020. She filed suit in August 2021, five weeks after the new notice law took effect, and her case became the one the court used to settle three years of appellate courts disagreeing with each other on this exact question.
Does This Revive a Case That Already Got Thrown Out?
No, and this is the part worth being careful about. A dismissal under the notice requirement was always “without prejudice.” That’s a specific legal phrase, and it means the case wasn’t over. Somebody dismissed for skipping the notice could send it and refile. What changed this week is narrower than that: if your policy predates July 2021, you never needed to send the notice at all.
What’s the Deadline That Actually Ends a Claim?
This ruling is about permission to sue, not about how much time you have. Those are two different clocks, and mixing them up is how somebody talks themselves into thinking they still have a case when they don’t.
The notice question turns on when your policy was issued. A separate Florida law, 627.70132, turns on when the damage happened. You have one year from the date of loss to give notice of a new property claim, and 18 months for a supplemental one. Miss that window and it usually doesn’t matter whether your policy needed the presuit notice or not. There’s nothing left to argue about.
Why Does This Matter If You’re Already Behind on Payments?
An insurance claim that gets underpaid or denied is one of the shorter paths into a short sale in this state. The roof doesn’t get fixed. The policy doesn’t get renewed. The forced-placed policy that replaces it costs more, and that cost lands in your escrow payment, on top of a mortgage that might already be tight. None of that changes because of one court ruling. What this week’s decision does is take one obstacle, the presuit notice, off the table for a specific group of older policies. Whether a lawsuit is worth pursuing from here is a question for an attorney who can look at your actual policy and your actual dates. I’m not one, and I wouldn’t pretend to be.
Also of note today, a new executive order touches a different kind of monthly bill.
How Do I Get Mortgage Insurance Taken Off My Payment?
Ask, in writing, once your balance reaches 80 percent of what the house was worth the day you closed. If the loan is conventional and current, it comes off automatically anyway once the balance is scheduled to hit 78 percent of that same number. That’s not a servicer favor. It’s a federal law, the Homeowners Protection Act, and it’s applied to loans closed since 1999.
I wrote last month about Fannie Mae’s rule letting servicers remove PMI based on what your house is worth today. This is a different law, and it only looks at what the house was worth when you bought it, which matters, because a market that’s gone up around you doesn’t speed anything along on its own.
What Actually Has to Be True for It to Come Off?
Two numbers decide it. The 80 percent mark is the one you can act on yourself, by asking. The 78 percent mark is automatic, and it’s based on your original amortization schedule, not your current balance, so extra principal payments can move the 80 percent request date earlier but not the automatic one. Either way, the loan has to be current: no payment 30 or more days late in the past year, and none 60 or more days late in the year before that. If it hasn’t come off by either route, the lender can’t charge you for it past the halfway point of your loan term. On a 30 year loan, that’s the month after payment 180.
Why Does “Original Value” Matter So Much?
Because it’s the one number in this whole rule that never moves. Your house could be worth 40 percent more than you paid for it, and the automatic 78 percent clock doesn’t care. It’s still running against the price you closed at. That gap, between what your house is actually worth now and what the law is willing to count, is exactly what the new executive order is aimed at.
What Does the New Order Actually Change?
The President signed an order on October 22 directing FHFA to consider a pilot letting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac use automated valuations to find borrowers who already qualify by today’s value and cancel their mortgage insurance without waiting on a request. It’s a real idea, and it would help people exactly like the ones this rule leaves out right now. It’s also limited, in the order’s own words, to loans made after the pilot exists, and the order sets no date for when that is. If you already have a loan today, this particular piece of it isn’t built for you yet.
What if My Loan Is FHA Instead of Conventional?
Different system, and most people can’t tell which one they’re in until somebody asks. FHA charges its own annual premium under its own rule. On a loan with a case number assigned on or after June 3, 2013, if your loan-to-value was above 90 percent at the start, that premium runs for the full term, which on a 30 year loan means the life of the loan. At 90 percent or under, it ends after 11 years. Appreciation doesn’t touch it either way. For most FHA borrowers stuck with it, the only way off is a refinance, and with rates where they sit right now, that’s its own math problem.
Why Would This Be Worth Checking Right Now?
A mortgage insurance line that won’t come off is real money every month, and it adds up fastest for somebody already stretched thin. Knowing which rule actually governs your loan, the one based on what you paid or the one based on what it’s worth today, takes about thirty seconds to figure out and changes what your actual options are.
I work out of Jacksonville, Florida, and distressed property is most of what lands on my desk. If either one of these touches your own situation, I’m easy to reach.
JimArmstrong904@gmail.com, or (904) 671-4161 if a call’s easier.
Jim Armstrong, REALTOR® · Momentum Realty · SFR® (Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource) certified. This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.
Momentum Realty is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender.
