With hurricane-related cases making up more than one-quarter of all insurance cases filed in federal district court last year, overall case counts neared 14,800.

The number was 14,793, according to a tally in the 2022 Insurance Litigation Report published by Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company, on Thursday.

That is the most case filings of any year in the Lex Machina database, which goes back to 2009, the company said in a media statement. The figure also represents a 47 percent jump in case filings over 2017.

In addition to reporting that 3,800 hurricane-related cases made up 26 percent of all litigation in federal district courts in 2021, Lex Machina said that business interruption cases peaked a year earlier, in 2020, but continued to come in significant numbers in 2021.

Over the five-year period from 2017-2021, the Southern District of Florida heard the highest number of insurance case filings with 4,084 cases.

The report also provides information on the most active defendants and law firms.

Source: Lex Machina