Assignment of Benefits in Insurance: A 50-State and D.C. Survey of Pre-Loss and Post-Loss Assignment

Scope. This is a doctrinal map of assignment of insurance benefits across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, covering property/homeowners, auto/PIP, health/ERISA, life, and commercial lines, with the pre-loss and post-loss rules treated separately for each. It does not address Medicare/Medicaid secondary-payer assignment, structured-settlement transfers, premium-finance assignments, or reinsurance cut-through clauses. For roughly 30 states that rest on the general common-law rule without a modern on-point appellate decision, the entry is predictive (treatise plus sister-state authority), not settled holding, and is flagged as such.

The short version

The dominant American rule is the post-loss assignment doctrine. An anti-assignment clause bars pre-loss transfer of the policy, because the insurer's risk could change, but it does not bar post-loss assignment of an accrued claim, which is a freely transferable chose in action. A clear majority of states follow this. A minority enforce anti-assignment clauses even post-loss: Texas by case law, Louisiana by statute where the clause is clear, and Ohio where the policy language is clear. Several states sit outside the clean binary, including New York with its material-increase-in-risk exception and Oregon with its idiosyncratic enforcement posture.

Florida reversed a century of post-loss-assignment law by statute. Fla. Stat. § 627.7152(13), added by SB 2-A (ch. 2022-268, signed Dec. 16, 2022), makes any assignment of post-loss benefits under residential or commercial property policies issued on or after January 1, 2023 void, invalid, and unenforceable. It does not reach auto/PIP or health, does not reach pre-2023 policies, and, critically, does not reach surplus lines.

Freedom of forms in the surplus-lines/E&S market means freedom from prior form filing and approval, not automatic enforceability. Florida's AOB statute sits in Chapter 627 and does not apply to surplus lines, because § 626.913(4) exempts surplus lines from Chapter 627 unless a provision is specifically stated to apply to them. But an E&S anti-assignment clause is still tested under the same common-law pre-loss/post-loss framework as an admitted policy, so in a majority-rule state it remains generally unenforceable against a post-loss assignment regardless of the freedom-of-forms exemption.

Key Findings

1. The common-law baseline. Across jurisdictions the doctrine is articulated consistently. Anti-assignment (no-assignment, consent-to-assignment) clauses exist to protect the insurer from being forced to insure a risk it did not underwrite. That rationale operates only before loss. Once the insured loss occurs, the insured's right to proceeds becomes a vested money claim, a chose in action, and an assignment of it does not materially increase the insurer's risk; it only changes who collects. Treatise support is uniform: Couch on Insurance §§ 35:7-35:8, Appleman, and Williston all state the majority post-loss rule. The New Jersey Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Givaudan Fragrances Corp. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 227 N.J. 322 (2017), is the leading modern synthesis.

2. Majority post-loss rule states. The anti-assignment clause does not bar post-loss assignment. This is confirmed by controlling state supreme court authority or settled appellate law in, among others, New Jersey (Givaudan, 2017), California (by statute, below), Florida (pre-2023, by case law, now superseded by statute for property), Oklahoma (Johnson v. CSAA Gen. Ins. Co., 2020 OK 110, 478 P.3d 422), Wisconsin (Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co. v. Employers Ins. Co. of Wausau, 2023 WI 42, 990 N.W.2d 267), Nebraska, Arizona (Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Udall, 2020), Connecticut, and Maryland (In re Featherfall Restoration LLC, 2025). Couch describes it as the rule of the great majority of courts.

3. Minority and divergent states.

• Texas enforces anti-assignment clauses even post-loss, without requiring the insurer to show prejudice. Texas Farmers Ins. Co. v. Gerdes, 880 S.W.2d 215 (Tex. App. Fort Worth 1994, writ denied); Keller Foundations, Inc. v. Wausau Underwriters Ins. Co., 626 F.3d 871 (5th Cir. 2010).
• Louisiana enforces post-loss anti-assignment clauses if they clearly and unambiguously apply to post-loss assignments. In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litig., 63 So. 3d 955 (La. 2011), relying on La. C.C. art. 2653.
• Ohio enforces anti-assignment clauses where the policy language is clear. Pilkington N. Am., Inc. v. Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co., 112 Ohio St. 3d 482, 861 N.E.2d 121 (2006), recognized the post-loss exception, but later federal application in Blue Ash Auto Body, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. (6th Cir. 2021) enforced the clause where the loss amount was disputed.
• New York follows the majority post-loss rule but with a material-increase-in-risk exception, so a post-loss assignment may still be barred in unusual circumstances such as speculative business-interruption or lost-profits claims. Globecon Group, LLC v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 434 F.3d 165 (2d Cir. 2006).
• Oregon historically enforced anti-assignment clauses, though the older Stubblefield rule was invalidated in Brownstone Homes Condo. Ass'n v. Brownstone Forest Heights, LLC, 358 Or. 223 (2015).

4. California, statutory codification of the post-loss rule. Cal. Ins. Code § 520 (enacted 1872, later amended) provides that an agreement not to transfer the insured's claim against the insurer after a loss has happened is void if made before the loss. In Fluor Corp. v. Superior Court, 61 Cal. 4th 1175 (2015), the California Supreme Court overruled its own Henkel Corp. v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 29 Cal. 4th 934 (2003), which had allowed enforcement until a claim was reduced to a fixed sum, and held § 520 bars an insurer from refusing to honor a post-loss assignment, with the loss occurring at the time of the injury-causing event rather than at judgment or settlement.

5. Line-of-business divergence is real and statute-driven. Property/homeowners drove the most aggressive statutory intervention in the country (the Florida AOB crisis). Auto/PIP litigation is heavy in Florida, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey; Michigan's Covenant Medical Center, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 500 Mich. 191 (2017) held providers have no direct statutory cause of action, forcing reliance on AOBs, while MCL 500.3143 voids assignment of future benefits but permits assignment of past or presently-due benefits. ERISA anti-assignment clauses are generally enforceable, the inverse of the property rule. Life policies are freely assignable under Grigsby v. Russell, 222 U.S. 149 (1911). Commercial lines track the general common-law post-loss rule, and the leading corporate-successor cases are all commercial liability disputes.

6. Admitted vs. surplus lines. Florida's § 626.913(4) exempts surplus lines from Chapter 627 unless a provision is specifically stated to apply to them; § 627.7152 contains no such statement, so the AOB prohibition does not reach E&S carriers. The common-law post-loss rule applies to E&S policies identically, so the practical answer for surplus lines reverts to common law.

Details

A. The pre-loss / post-loss distinction in depth

The analytical pivot is what is being assigned. A pre-loss assignment transfers the contractual relationship itself, substituting a new insured whose risk profile the insurer never evaluated. Courts uniformly enforce anti-assignment clauses against such transfers. A post-loss assignment transfers only an accrued, fixed claim for money. The insured remains the party who was underwritten, the loss has already occurred, and the insurer's exposure is fixed. As the New Jersey Supreme Court explained in Givaudan, once the loss occurs an assignment of the rights to that loss does not materially increase the insurer's risk; it only changes the identity of the party enforcing the insurer's obligation on the same risk.

The doctrine rests on a public policy disfavoring restraints on alienation of choses in action. That is why most courts treat post-loss anti-assignment clauses as void as applied, regardless of how broadly the clause is worded, though a vocal minority (Texas, Louisiana, Ohio) prioritize freedom of contract and enforce clear language.

A recurring sophistication point, reaffirmed in Maryland's In re Featherfall Restoration LLC (Md. 2025): courts distinguish assignment of the policy from assignment of a claim. A clause barring assignment of "this policy" does not, by its terms, bar assignment of an individual post-loss claim. Drafting precision in both the policy clause and the AOB instrument is therefore outcome-determinative.

B. Pre-loss assignment: the uniform rule, and why it gets one section

Pre-loss treatment is the side of the doctrine with essentially no state variation, which is exactly why the post-loss rule produces all the litigation. In all 51 jurisdictions the baseline is identical: a policy anti-assignment clause is enforceable against an assignment attempted before the loss. Move the policy before anything has happened and the insurer is handed a risk it never underwrote, which is the precise harm the clause exists to stop. No state treats a bare pre-loss assignment of a property/casualty policy as valid over the insurer's objection. There is no majority/minority split here because there is no real disagreement.

Three qualifications carry weight, and only three:

1. Consent. Every anti-assignment clause yields to insurer consent, because the clause conditions assignment on consent in the first place. A consented pre-loss assignment is the clause operating exactly as written, not an exception to it. Underwriting can permit a pre-loss transfer by endorsement, routine in property sales that close before any loss, without disturbing the rule.

2. Transfer by operation of law. Mergers, asset sales, and reorganizations raise whether the clause blocks a transfer the policyholder did not voluntarily execute. The modern answer turns on timing, not on the clause. If the injury-causing event already occurred, courts treat the transferred right as a post-loss chose in action and apply the post-loss rule, even where the corporate transaction itself looks pre-loss. That timing analysis is the core of Fluor (Cal.), Givaudan (N.J.), and Pepsi-Cola (Wis.). Where no loss-triggering event has yet occurred, the clause is generally enforced against the attempted transfer.

3. Life insurance. The one line where pre-"loss" assignment is freely allowed. A life policy is assignable before the insured's death as ordinary property under Grigsby v. Russell, 222 U.S. 149 (1911), subject only to state viatical/life-settlement and STOLI regulation. Property, auto, and health follow the standard pre-loss bar; life does not.

The practical consequence for the map below is that the pre-loss column is uniform across the property/casualty states, so the variation that actually decides cases lives entirely in the post-loss column.

C. State-by-state map (pre-loss and post-loss)

The pre-loss column reflects whether a policy anti-assignment clause bars assignment before loss (uniformly enforceable for property/casualty per Section B, consent and operation-of-law transfers aside). The post-loss column reflects the general common-law rule for first-party property/casualty unless a line-specific statute overrides. "Majority" means the anti-assignment clause does not bar post-loss assignment.

Unsettled or thin authority, flagged. Many smaller-population states have no on-point modern appellate decision and rest on the general common-law rule plus treatise authority; treat those entries as predictive, not settled. North Carolina is clause-specific, so the outcome depends on the exact policy wording. New York's exception is fact-intensive. Oregon's position is the most idiosyncratic among the non-Texas and non-Louisiana states.

D. Florida in detail

The pre-reform baseline. Florida recognized post-loss assignability from West Florida Grocery Co. v. Teutonia Fire Ins. Co., 77 So. 209 (Fla. 1917), reaffirmed in Lexington Ins. Co. v. Simkins Indus., Inc., 704 So. 2d 1384 (Fla. 1998), and Continental Casualty Co. v. Ryan Inc. Eastern, 974 So. 2d 368 (Fla. 2008). The modern AOB crisis crystallized on May 20, 2015, when the Fourth DCA decided One Call Property Services Inc. v. Security First Insurance Co., 165 So. 3d 749 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015), holding a post-loss assignment valid despite an anti-assignment clause and that the loss-payment provision created no contractual bar. Florida's appellate courts repeatedly affirmed OIR's rejection of insurer anti-AOB endorsements: first the First DCA in Security First Insurance Co. v. State, Office of Insurance Regulation, 177 So. 3d 627 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015), and then the Fifth DCA in Security First Insurance Co. v. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, 232 So. 3d 1157 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017), the latter citing an unbroken line of Florida cases over the prior century. The Fourth DCA later took a narrower view, enforcing a consent-to-assignment provision and certifying conflict with the Fifth DCA's Security First in Restoration 1 of Port St. Lucie v. Ark Royal Insurance Co., 255 So. 3d 344 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018), a split the 2019 and 2022 statutory reforms have since overtaken.

The scale of the crisis. This was the most acute AOB problem in the country by an order of magnitude. Per Florida Department of Financial Services data, AOB lawsuits across Florida's 67 counties grew from 405 in 2006 to 28,200 in 2016, an increase the Consumer Protection Coalition put at more than 6,800 percent. The Insurance Information Institute estimated that Florida auto and homeowners policyholders paid roughly $2.5 billion in excess premium over a dozen years to cover the AOB-driven rise in legal costs. The state-backed insurer of last resort felt it most directly: Citizens Property Insurance reported it would spend about $70 million in 2018 defending AOB litigation, equal to 17 percent of its total premium (Insurance Journal, July 19, 2018), and Citizens data showed 76 percent of its 2016 water-loss claims arrived as lawsuits, up from 2.5 percent of litigated water claims in 2012, with the average South Florida AOB claim exceeding $32,000, nearly triple the non-AOB average (Florida Consumer Protection Coalition). These figures come from industry and trade-press reporting rather than a single regulatory filing, and are dated accordingly.

HB 7065 (2019), §§ 627.7152 and 627.7153, effective July 1, 2019. This created a regulatory regime for AOBs (defined as "assignment agreements") under residential and commercial property policies. Section 627.7152 imposed mandatory content requirements: a written, itemized per-unit cost estimate, rescission rights, statutory notice in 18-point boldface, delivery to the insurer within 3 business days, and a 10-business-day presuit notice of intent to litigate. Non-compliant AOBs are invalid and unenforceable. Courts enforce strict compliance. Air Quality Experts Corp. v. Family Security Ins. Co., 351 So. 3d 32 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022) (a standard price list did not satisfy the estimate requirement); Kidwell Group v. American Integrity (Fla. 2d DCA 2022) (the statute applies based on the AOB execution date, not the policy issuance date). Section 627.7153 allowed insurers to sell policies restricting or prohibiting AOB only if they also made an unrestricted policy available at a higher price, with statutory notice. HB 7065 also created a fee-shifting framework tied to the ratio of the judgment to the presuit settlement offer.

SB 2-A (ch. 2022-268), signed December 16, 2022, the prohibition. New § 627.7152(13) provides that, except as provided in subsection (11), a policyholder may not assign, in whole or in part, any post-loss insurance benefit under any residential property insurance policy or under any commercial property insurance policy as defined in s. 627.0625(1) issued on or after January 1, 2023, and that an attempt to assign post-loss property insurance benefits under such a policy is void, invalid, and unenforceable. The subsection (11) carve-outs are assignment to a subsequent purchaser of the property with an insurable interest, a power of attorney under statute, and liability coverage under a property policy.

What SB 2-A does and does not reach:

• It reaches post-loss benefits under residential and commercial property insurance policies issued on or after January 1, 2023.
• It does not reach policies issued before January 1, 2023, which remain governed by the 2019 § 627.7152 regime, so an AOB can still be valid where the policy issued on or after July 1, 2019 and before January 1, 2023 and the AOB complies with the statute.
• It does not reach auto/PIP. PIP medical-provider assignments under § 627.736 remain valid and are expressly contemplated by the statute's demand-letter provisions.
• It does not reach health insurance.
• It does not reach surplus lines (Section E).

Elimination of one-way attorney fees. SB 2-A first eliminated one-way fees for residential and commercial property suits, amending §§ 627.428 and 626.9373. HB 837 (signed March 24, 2023) then fully repealed §§ 627.428 and 626.9373 (one-way fees for admitted and surplus carriers respectively) and created § 86.121 (limited one-way fees only in declaratory actions following a total coverage denial, not for property policies). HB 837 also ended PIP plaintiffs' automatic fee entitlement, leaving the § 768.79 offer-of-judgment route as the residual path. In 2025 the Legislature considered restoring prevailing-party "two-way" fees via new §§ 627.4275 and 626.9375 (per Florida House staff analyses of the 2025 fee legislation); confirm current enacted status before relying.

Retroactivity. Courts have largely held the AOB statute applies based on the AOB execution date (Kidwell). For the fee repeal, the dominant view is that the law in effect when the policy issued or renewed governs, so pre-March 24, 2023 policies retain one-way fees, but insurers have argued for retroactive application and the issue continued to generate appellate litigation. As of mid-2026, treat the fee-repeal retroactivity question as still shaking out at the DCA level.

E. Admitted vs. surplus lines / E&S, the regulatory difference

The freedom-of-forms concept. Surplus lines (non-admitted, E&S) insurers are exempt from most rate-and-form regulation. In Florida, § 626.913(4) provides that, except as may be specifically stated to apply to surplus lines insurers, the provisions of Chapter 627 do not apply to surplus lines insurance authorized under ss. 626.913 to 626.937, the Surplus Lines Law (added by ch. 2009-166). Section 627.021(2)(e) reinforces that the part does not apply to surplus lines insurance placed under ss. 626.913 to 626.937. Surplus lines policies must bear a 14-point boldface legend under § 626.924(2) stating that surplus lines insurers' policy rates and forms are not approved by any Florida regulatory agency.

The 2009 fix and its backstory. In Essex Insurance Co. v. Zota, 985 So. 2d 1036 (Fla. 2008), the Florida Supreme Court read the pre-2009 statute narrowly, exempting surplus lines only from the Part I rating laws and not all of Chapter 627. The 2009 Legislature responded with § 626.913(4) (CS/HB 853, ch. 2009-166), declaring all of Chapter 627 inapplicable to surplus lines absent a specific statement.

Does Florida's AOB statute reach surplus lines? No. Because § 627.7152 sits in Chapter 627 and contains no language specifically stated to apply to surplus lines insurers, § 626.913(4) carves it out. The negative-implication argument is strong. When the Legislature wants a Chapter 627 property provision to bind surplus lines, it says so expressly. Compare § 627.70131(8) (claims-handling timeframes), which states it also applies to surplus lines insurers and surplus lines insurance authorized under ss. 626.913 to 626.937 providing residential coverage. That express extension in § 627.70131(8) and its absence from § 627.7152 confirms the AOB prohibition was not extended to E&S. Federal trial-court authority applies the same specifically-stated logic to exempt surplus lines from other Chapter 627 provisions, including Aspen Specialty Ins. Co. v. River Oaks of Palm Beach Homeowner's Ass'n (S.D. Fla. 2012), holding § 627.409 misrepresentation and rescission rules inapplicable to a surplus lines insurer.

Freedom from form filing does not equal enforceability. Freedom of forms means a surplus lines insurer may use a form without prior OIR approval. It does not mean every clause is automatically valid. Courts still apply general contract law, public-policy limits, unconscionability, and the common-law pre-loss/post-loss assignment framework to E&S policies exactly as to admitted policies. The post-loss rule turns on the nature of the right assigned, a fixed post-loss claim versus the policy itself, not on whether the insurer is admitted or non-admitted. Couch on Insurance §§ 35:7-35:8 states the great-majority rule that policy anti-assignment clauses reach only pre-loss assignments and do not bar assignment after loss. So an E&S anti-assignment clause is generally unenforceable against a post-loss assignment of a fixed claim under majority-rule common law, even though the SB 2-A statutory prohibition does not apply. Practically, the admitted-market statutory machinery of §§ 627.7152 and 627.7153 presupposes OIR form approval and a regulated "make available" regime that has no purchase on unfiled E&S forms, so for surplus lines the analysis reverts to common law.

Federal NRRA (2010). The Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act (Dodd-Frank Title V; 15 U.S.C. §§ 8201-8206) gives the insured's home state exclusive authority to regulate and tax surplus lines. Section 8202(a) provides that the placement is subject to the statutory and regulatory requirements solely of the insured's home state, and § 8201(a) bars any state other than the home state from requiring premium tax payment. It is a jurisdiction-allocation statute. It preempts overlapping multistate regulation and centralizes premium tax, but it does not federally validate any policy clause, and an NAIC sample bulletin notes it does not expand the kinds of insurance a non-admitted insurer may write. So for a Florida-home-state insured, Florida law governs, but because § 626.913(4) carves surplus lines out of Chapter 627, the home-state referral does not import § 627.7152, and the NRRA supplies no independent federal rule on anti-assignment enforceability.

F. Line-of-business deep dives

Auto/PIP no-fault.

• Florida. Section 627.736 governs PIP. Medical providers routinely take AOBs to bill the insurer directly, and the demand-letter provision in § 627.736(10) expressly contemplates a copy of the assignment giving rights to a claimant who is not the insured. HB 837 (2023) repealed PIP plaintiffs' one-way fee entitlement under § 627.428, leaving § 768.79 offers of judgment as the residual fee route.
• Michigan. Covenant Medical Center v. State Farm, 500 Mich. 191 (2017) held providers have no direct statutory cause of action against no-fault insurers, applied retroactively (W.A. Foote Hospital v. Mich. Assigned Claims Plan, Mich. App. 2017). Providers must now obtain AOBs. MCL 500.3143 voids assignment of future benefits but allows assignment of past or presently-due benefits (Shah v. State Farm, Mich. App. 2018). A policy anti-assignment clause applicable to past or present benefits may be enforced unless an older common-law rule voids it.
• New York. Regulation 68 (11 NYCRR § 65-3.11) prescribes mandatory AOB form language (NF-3, NF-AOB). An assignee provider stands in the insured's shoes, assumes the duty to arbitrate, and, critically, may not bill the patient directly after a medical-necessity denial. The insured cannot unilaterally revoke an AOB after services are rendered.
• New Jersey. Heavy PIP-AOB litigation; assignments to providers are common.

Health and ERISA. ERISA § 502(a) confers standing only on participants, beneficiaries, fiduciaries, and the Secretary, not on providers. Providers gain derivative standing only through a valid assignment (North Jersey Brain & Spine Center v. Aetna, 801 F.3d 369 (3d Cir. 2015)). But plan anti-assignment clauses are generally enforceable. In American Orthopedic & Sports Medicine v. Independence Blue Cross Blue Shield, 890 F.3d 445 (3d Cir. 2018), the Third Circuit joined the First, Second, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits in holding that ERISA-plan anti-assignment clauses are generally enforceable; the provider there had billed $58,400 for a shoulder surgery and was reimbursed $316. The court left open a power-of-attorney workaround. The Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and D.C. Circuits lack binding circuit authority, but district courts in them generally enforce. This is the inverse of the property post-loss rule: in ERISA health, the anti-assignment clause wins.

Life insurance. Freely assignable as personal property since Grigsby v. Russell, 222 U.S. 149 (1911) (Holmes, J.), which held that life policies should carry the ordinary characteristics of transferable property. That holding is the legal foundation of the viatical market (1980s AIDS crisis) and the life-settlement market, now regulated by state adoption of the NAIC and NCOIL viatical and life-settlement model acts and STOLI prohibitions. The market remains substantial: per the Life Insurance Settlement Association 2023 Market Data Collection Survey, member providers reported purchasing $4.67 billion in total face value across 3,218 transactions in 2023, and The Deal's Life Settlement Report put 2023 aggregate secondary-market face value at about $4.72 billion, the highest since 2010. Those figures come from industry-association and trade-press reporting.

Commercial lines. Governed by the general common-law post-loss rule. The leading corporate-successor coverage cases (Givaudan (N.J.), Fluor (Cal.), Pepsi-Cola (Wis.)) are all commercial and liability disputes involving assignment of long-tail asbestos or environmental claims by operation of corporate restructuring. The recurring fight is whether the loss occurs at the injury-causing event (majority, Fluor) or only at judgment (Henkel, now overruled in California).

Recommendations

For claims adjusters and underwriters.

1. Identify the line and the state first. The post-loss rule is the default for property/casualty in most states, but PIP (statute-specific), health/ERISA (anti-assignment enforceable), and life (freely assignable) follow different regimes. Do not apply a single rule across lines.
2. In Florida property, the controlling question is the policy issuance date. A policy issued on or after January 1, 2023 voids any post-loss AOB under § 627.7152(13); reject it. A policy issued July 1, 2019 through December 31, 2022 may support a valid AOB only if it strictly complies with § 627.7152, so scrutinize for the itemized per-unit estimate, rescission language, 18-point notice, and timely delivery. A policy issued before July 1, 2019 falls under pre-statute common law, where a post-loss AOB is valid.
3. For surplus lines, do not rely on § 627.7152, which does not apply. Evaluate the policy's own anti-assignment clause under common-law post-loss principles. If the goal is an enforceable post-loss restriction in an E&S policy in a majority-rule state, recognize that courts will likely void it as applied to a fixed accrued claim regardless of how the form is worded.

For coverage counsel. 4. Distinguish policy-assignment from claim-assignment in every dispute (Featherfall). If the clause bars only assignment of the policy, argue it does not reach a claim assignment. Conversely, when drafting or binding, use the broadest interest-under-the-policy language if the goal is to restrict. 5. Run a choice-of-law analysis early. The outcome flips between the enforce states (Texas, Louisiana, Ohio) and the majority. Givaudan itself flagged that which state's law applies can be dispositive. 6. In ERISA matters, plead the power-of-attorney alternative alongside any assignment to preserve provider standing if the anti-assignment clause is enforced (American Orthopedic).

Thresholds that would change the analysis.

• A state supreme court adopting or rejecting the post-loss rule in a currently-unsettled state.
• Florida appellate resolution of the fee-repeal retroactivity question and the enacted status of the 2025 two-way-fee legislation (§§ 627.4275 and 626.9375).
• Any state amending its surplus-lines law to specifically state that an AOB statute applies to non-admitted carriers.
• Other catastrophe-exposed states (Louisiana and Texas are already restrictive) copying Florida's statutory AOB prohibition; watch coastal property markets.

Caveats

• This is a doctrinal map, not jurisdiction-specific legal advice. For the roughly 30 states resting on the general common-law rule without a modern on-point appellate decision, the entry is predictive (treatise plus sister-state authority), not a settled holding. Verify current local authority before relying.
• Statutory citations should be re-pulled at the point of use. Florida's statutes have changed repeatedly (2019 HB 7065, 2022 SB 2-D, 2022 SB 2-A, 2023 HB 837, 2025 proposals). Effective dates and section numbers here are as of June 2026.
• Several cited federal trial-court and intermediate decisions are persuasive, not controlling. Distinguish state supreme court holdings (controlling) from intermediate-appellate and federal-applying-state-law decisions.
• The surplus-lines analysis is most fully developed for Florida. Other states' surplus-lines laws vary in whether and how they exempt non-admitted carriers from form regulation. The conceptual point, that freedom from filing does not equal enforceability, is general, but the specific statutory carve-out mechanics here are Florida-specific.
• A few cited cases (for example Aspen Specialty v. River Oaks) were located through secondary sources and should be pulled from the docket or reporter before formal citation. Essex v. Zota's narrow reading of the pre-2009 statute was legislatively superseded by § 626.913(4) and is cited only for historical context.

Sources

Primary sources (statutes and regulator materials):

• Fla. Stat. § 627.7152, Assignment agreements (Florida Senate): https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2022/627.7152
• Fla. Stat. § 627.7153, Restricting assignment (Florida Senate): https://m.flsenate.gov/statutes/627.7153
• Fla. Stat. § 627.021 (Florida Senate): https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2021/627.021
• Fla. Stat. § 626.913, Surplus Lines Law (Justia): https://law.justia.com/codes/florida/title-xxxvii/chapter-626/part-viii/section-626-913/
• SB 2-A, ch. 2022-268, Laws of Fla. (signed Dec. 16, 2022); HB 7065, ch. 2019-57, Laws of Fla. (eff. July 1, 2019); HB 837, ch. 2023-15, Laws of Fla. (signed Mar. 24, 2023), creating Fla. Stat. § 86.121
• Cal. Ins. Code § 520; Mich. Comp. Laws § 500.3143; Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 8201-8206; ERISA § 502(a), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)
• Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Assignment of Benefits Resources (source of the 405-to-28,200 DFS lawsuit figures): https://floir.gov/consumers/assignment-of-benefits-resources
• New York DFS, OGC Opinion on Regulation 68 no-fault benefits: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/insurance/ogco2003/rg030436.htm
• N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 11 § 65-3.11 (Direct payments / no-fault AOB), Cornell LII: https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-york/11-NYCRR-65-3.11

Case opinions (ordered by hierarchy and topic):

• Givaudan Fragrances Corp. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 227 N.J. 322 (2017): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4344972/
• Fluor Corp. v. Superior Court, 61 Cal. 4th 1175 (2015): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2828947/
• Henkel Corp. v. Hartford Accident & Indem. Co., 29 Cal. 4th 934 (2003): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2621550/
• Grigsby v. Russell, 222 U.S. 149 (1911): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2512110/
• Johnson v. CSAA Gen. Ins. Co., 2020 OK 110, 478 P.3d 422: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4843671/
• Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co. v. Employers Ins. Co. of Wausau, 2023 WI 42, 990 N.W.2d 267: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/9401566/
• Pilkington N. Am., Inc. v. Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co., 112 Ohio St. 3d 482, 861 N.E.2d 121 (2006): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6895342/
• In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litig., 63 So. 3d 955 (La. 2011): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5051314/
• Texas Farmers Ins. Co. v. Gerdes, 880 S.W.2d 215 (Tex. App. 1994): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2392881/
• Keller Foundations, Inc. v. Wausau Underwriters Ins. Co., 626 F.3d 871 (5th Cir. 2010): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/179526/
• Globecon Group, LLC v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 434 F.3d 165 (2d Cir. 2006): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/792910/
• Brownstone Homes Condo. Ass'n v. Brownstone Forest Heights, LLC, 358 Or. 223 (2015): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3158482/
• Covenant Medical Center, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 500 Mich. 191 (2017): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4395122/
• American Orthopedic & Sports Medicine v. Independence Blue Cross Blue Shield, 890 F.3d 445 (3d Cir. 2018): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4498401/
• North Jersey Brain & Spine Center v. Aetna, Inc., 801 F.3d 369 (3d Cir. 2015): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2924440/
• Continental Cas. Co. v. Ryan Inc. Eastern, 974 So. 2d 368 (Fla. 2008): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1794946/
• Lexington Ins. Co. v. Simkins Indus., Inc., 704 So. 2d 1384 (Fla. 1998): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1760289/
• West Florida Grocery Co. v. Teutonia Fire Ins. Co., 77 So. 209 (Fla. 1917) (cited by reporter; original of the post-loss rule)
• One Call Property Services Inc. v. Security First Insurance Co., 165 So. 3d 749 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015): https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1703598.html
• Security First Insurance Co. v. State, Office of Insurance Regulation, 177 So. 3d 627 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5010522/
• Security First Insurance Co. v. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, 232 So. 3d 1157 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017): https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1881356.html
• Restoration 1 of Port St. Lucie v. Ark Royal Insurance Co., 255 So. 3d 344 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4532528/
• Air Quality Experts Corp. v. Family Security Ins. Co., 351 So. 3d 32 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022) (cited by reporter); Essex Insurance Co. v. Zota, 985 So. 2d 1036 (Fla. 2008): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1663571/

Data and commentary:

• Insurance Information Institute, "Florida's assignment of benefits crisis: runaway litigation is spreading" (Dec. 11, 2018) (source of the $2.5 billion figure): https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/aobfl_wp_12112018.pdf
• Insurance Journal, "Florida's AOB Abuse by the Numbers" (Feb. 9, 2017) (source of the Citizens 76%/2.5% water-loss split and the $32,000 South Florida figure): https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2017/02/09/441410.htm
• Life Insurance Settlement Association, 2023 Market Data Collection Survey (May 7, 2024) (source of the $4.67 billion / 3,218-transaction figures): https://www.lisa.org/blog_home.asp?Display=20