Florida legislation proposed last week would prevent the state’s motorists from assigning their legal rights in auto insurance claims to repair shops.

Assignment of benefits (AOB) is a standard practice in the insurance world. In Florida, however, this efficient, customer-friendly way to settle claims has long served as a magnet for fraud.

The state’s legal environment has encouraged vendors and their attorneys to solicit unwarranted AOBs from tens of thousands of Floridians, conduct unnecessary or unnecessarily expensive work, then file tens of thousands of lawsuits against insurers that deny or dispute the claims.

Legislation approved in the closing weeks of 2022 took several crucial steps toward resolving the state’s property/casualty insurance crisis, including elimination of the state’s AOB laws with respect to property claims. But it didn’t affect auto-related AOBs.