Chip Merlin

Photo of Chip Merlin

Since 1983, Chip Merlin has served as a plaintiff’s attorney with a focus on commercial & residential property insurance claim disputes and bad faith insurance litigation. Chip is a noted national authority on insurance bad faith, lecturing to national trade groups and publishing a number of papers and articles on the subject for organizations such as The American Association for Justice, The Florida Justice Association, The Windstorm Insurance Network, and Trial Magazine.

As founder and president of Merlin Law Group, Chip has dedicated his practice to the representation and advocacy of insurance policyholders in disputes with insurance companies nationwide.

Chip served as Chair for the Bad Faith Insurance Litigation Group and Secretary for the Fire and Property Insurance Litigation Group for the American Association for Justice (formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America). He was also Vice-Chair for the Subcommittee on Property Insurance Law for the American Bar Association.

Firm/Organization: Merlin Law Group, P.A.
Blogs: Condominium Insurance Law, Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog

Latest Articles

The Florida Advisory Commission on Arson Prevention was one of the first organizations I prepared a public presentation for while I worked with Paul Butler in the early 1980’s. Paul gave a speech about wrongful steps insurance adjusters should not make during a fire loss investigation and those where arson was suspected. One of those was wrongful actions was demanding a policyholder sign a Reservations of Rights or Non-Waiver Agreement before starting an investigation of…
Managed repair is the rage of many insurance companies. To reduce claims costs and better compete on low price, some insurance company adjusters use various techniques to steer or pressure policyholders into using contractors the insurance company wants the policyholder to hire. Independent restoration contractors and public adjusters have legions of stories about how adjusters achieve these low-ball payment goals through pressure techniques of innuendo or threats of non-payment.…
angel
The interests and needs of policyholders is why public adjusters get to make a living adjusting claims. The financial interests of the public adjuster are not paramount to the policyholder. The public interest is paramount over the public adjuster trade. So long as public adjusters properly serve policyholders, serve the public interest, and strive to raise the bar of those participating in their trade, they will be allowed to practice what used to be illegal…
Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Florence are the most recent hurricanes which have left policyholders facing one of the most important decisions they can make—who will fix my roof? How do you go about choosing a roofer to fix a hurricane damaged roof? Are there common mistakes policyholders make when choosing a roofing contractor?…
Rene Sigman of Merlin Law Group has been appointed to an elite group of attorneys and judges working on Model Case Management Orders designed to streamline insurance cases following natural disasters. The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System issued a press release which stated in part: IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, with the support of a grant from the American College of Trial Lawyers, is leading…
The Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) has issued an email authorizing Florida licensed public adjusters to hire anybody to make estimates of damage. This email corrects my latest two blogs which indicated that the OIR wanted to prevent those not licensed from working on insurance claims by determining valuations of loss and estimates of damage.…
Florida Attorney General Candidate Sean Shaw and I collaborated and drafted language that made people making the values, numbers, scopes of loss or directly or indirectly, helping determine an insurance claim amount, have an attorney license or a public adjuster license. We wanted to better protect consumers and help stop allegations of or actual insurance fraud from occurring.…