If your home burns down, I don’t imagine the general public has a proper to know your identify, deal with and the way a lot the insurance coverage firm paid you on your loss.
The Seattle Occasions’ April 8 editorial agrees with my workplace on a type of factors — though the rationale supplied for the remainder of its disagreements lacks context.
The editorial — “Bills requested by WA insurance commissioner bypass transparency” — takes goal at two provisions in two items of laws, Senate Invoice 5419 and Senate Invoice 5262.
On SB 5419, The Occasions argues that data exhibiting an insurance coverage firm dragging its toes after a wildfire would not be publicly accessible. That’s a misrepresentation of what the invoice does.
Ninety days after the declare closes, insurers should report: The deal with, date and reason behind the hearth; the quantity the corporate paid; the origin and reason behind the hearth; and the corporate monitoring quantity.
No “client watchdog” may monitor whether or not an insurance coverage firm was gradual in making funds with out understanding protection limits and the specifics of the loss. The data isn’t reported till three months after the declare closes, in order that hypothetical feels far-fetched.
They might, nonetheless, request information on complaints filed with our workplace from individuals being mistreated by their insurance coverage firm. We’re glad to point out our work to assist customers, whereas defending their private monetary data.
The exemption in SB 5262 got here on the request of the suppliers submitting their data. We don’t regulate them however do ask for his or her information, for mixture reporting to the Legislature. They requested for a similar exemptions we give to the entities we regulate (established in SSB 5806, which handed each chambers unanimously in 2024 with no curiosity from The Occasions).
We supplied to strike that exemption after a request from the newspaper publishers’ lobbyist throughout a listening to and labored with the publishers and the state medical affiliation on an modification to slim the exemption.
The data exempted underneath these payments belongs to non-public residents.
These payments make clear present legislation; they don’t curtail anybody’s proper to public data. The one particular curiosity concerned is my curiosity in strengthening the protections non-public residents have over their private data.
