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Six weeks after Tampa-based Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co. filed a libel suit against a whistleblower claims adjuster, the adjuster’s lawyer has pushed back, arguing that the suit is an attempt to silence those who question insurers’ damage estimates.

“Jordan Lee acted courageously to shine a light on systemic misconduct. This lawsuit is an attack not just on him, but on every Floridian who relies on fair insurance practices after a disaster,” said attorney John Tolley, who represents independent adjuster Lee.

Lee raised the hackles of Heritage officials in September, when he appeared on the CBS News show, 60 Minutes. He reiterated claims he and other independent adjusters had made in 2022, that Heritage and several insurance carriers had deceptively altered the adjusters’ damage reports, greatly reducing the amount payable to homeowners.

“I handled 46 of them; 44 of them were changed,” Lee said in the 60 Minutes interview. Some estimates were reduced by 98%, the show stated.

In many libel suits, an aggrieved plaintiff will include the news outlet as a defendant. A Heritage spokesperson declined to answer Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é questions about why CBS News was not named in the Lee suit. But a Florida law professor said that the legal action is an effort to put the chill on Lee and other potential whistleblowers.

“The purpose of this lawsuit is not to shut up CBS, something Heritage really could not realistically hope to do. Instead, the purpose of the lawsuit is to cower the adjusters who work for it,” said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University. “This lawsuit will bankrupt Jordan Lee, even if he wins. This will make future adjusters think twice before they publicly criticize or disagree with Heritage.”

Lee’s attorney agreed and suggested that the Heritage lawsuit marks a “significant escalation” in the dispute between the insurer and whistleblowers.

“This legal action is a blatant attempt to silence and punish not only Jordan but other potential whistleblowers for doing or attempting to do the right thing,” Tolley said in an emailed statement.

Tolley has not yet filed a formal answer to the Heritage suit, nor a motion to dismiss it.

The Heritage complaint, in Hillsborough County Circuit Court, contends that Lee deliberately inflated damage estimates on homes that were affected by Hurricane Ian in 2022. Lee, a freelance adjuster hired by Heritage at the time, traveled from Texas to Florida in hopes of earning large fees on wind claims, the suit alleges.

“When preparing claim estimates for Plaintiff, Defendant fraudulently manipulated his claim estimates to maximize his commission-based payout,” the complaint reads. “When his misconduct was uncovered and his estimates were corrected, Defendant did not receive the compensation he expected. Consequently, Defendant returned to Texas and began falsely and publicly alleging that Plaintiff intentionally reduced his estimates to avoid payment to its insured.”

Lee violated guidelines, defaulting to replacement costs instead of repairs for most damage, the suit notes. Many of Lee’s estimates were unsupported by photographs or other evidence, the complaint alleges.

“After a third-party administrator firm discovered Defendant’s unscrupulous estimates, it expended significant time correcting them to ensure the estimates were supported by the insured’s coverage, policy limits, and actual damage,” the complaint reads.

When Lee learned that his estimates had been adjusted “for accuracy and compliance,” he went to the news media, the insurer argues.

Lee and two other independent adjusters who worked Ian claims have made statements to Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é and other news sites that differ sharply from the Heritage lawsuit contentions. The three adjusters initially made their concerns public at a Florida House of Representatives committee hearing in late 2022, charging that multiple insurers had doctored dozens of their damage estimates without the adjusters’ knowledge or consent.

Instead of sending a second adjuster to inspect the property, as some insurers have done, Heritage and others carriers or their claims management firms would arbitrarily alter the adjusters’ initial reports in ways that made it look like the adjuster had arrived at the lower damage amounts, the whistleblowers said. The issue came to light after a number of homeowners complained to the adjusters that the insurance companies’ revised reports were significantly different from what the adjusters had suggested.

The Heritage lawsuit details multiple properties inspected by Lee after Hurricane Ian. It argues that his estimates are “replete with intentional falsities and omissions,” in an effort to boost his adjuster fees.

Adjusters don’t always earn significantly higher fees for higher damage estimates, though, Florida adjusters have explained. A fee schedule included in the Heritage complaint shows an incremental scale. The fee for catastrophic claims after a hurricane, stays the same for damage estimates in a given range: $1,545 is the fee for estimates that range from $35,000 to $50,000; for estimates between $50,000 and $75,000, the fee bumps up to $1,840. Above that, adjusters earn a percentage of the estimate.

Heritage argues in the suit that Lee overestimated claims. It shows his estimates on damage, but does not show the final level that the carrier offered to pay.

An investigation into the insurers’ alleged practices, promised in 2022 by Florida’s former chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, has yet to produce any results.

Heritage officials said last fall that the 60 Minutes report was in error, but did not lash out at Lee at the time.

“The accusation by adjusters … that we used ‘altered damaged reports to deceive customers’ is flat wrong,” Heritage CEO Ernie Garateix said in a statement last September. “Third-party field adjusters, like Jordan Lee, always have to collaborate with those higher up in their company on their estimates and the company Lee worked for during Hurricane Ian is no longer in business.”

The Heritage claims software had inadvertently left desk adjusters’ names off final, revised damage estimates sent to policyholders, making it appear that independent field adjusters had signed off on the report, company leaders have said. And some estimates were revised upward, benefitting the insureds, Garateix said.

The insuer’s stock price fell sharply after the 60 Minutes report last fall, but it has climbed to a nine-year high since then, according to Yahoo!Finance.

The Heritage suit claims libel, slander, defamation and fraud by Lee, and asks for damages and attorney fees. Attorney Gregory Kehoe, with the Greenberg Traurig law firm, is representing Heritage. He declined to comment.

The amended complaint can be seen here.

Photo: Jordan Lee, interviewed by 60 Minutes’ Sharyn Alfonsi. (photo of the broadcast).

Update: This article has been updated to show that attorney John Tolley is not associated with the Merlin Law Group.

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Topics Lawsuits