In their latest ad the folks over at Approve 67 claim that "Washington is one of only five states where it's not illegal for insurance companies to deny your legitimate claim."
That is false. It is illegal. If you contract for a service that is not provided as per the contract, that violates the law. If nothing else, it violates contract law.
But it goes deeper: R-67 modifies RCW 48.30.010 to add, specifically, that an insurer "may not unreasonably deny a claim for coverage or payment of benefits." However, that section also says that insurer shall not "engage in ... unfair or deceptive acts," and that such acts can be defined by regulation. And sure enough, WAC 284-30-330 gives very detailed regulations under that law for what are considered illegal "unfair or deceptive acts," including, but not limited to, "not attempting in good faith to effectuate prompt, fair and equitable settlements of claims in which liability has become reasonably clear."
So current law already says that if you have a claim that the insurance company has a clear obligation to honor, they are required to pay. It is illegal for them to not pay your legitimate claim.
So how do they justify this falsehood? They say, "Washington does not have any consumer protection laws with financial penalties for delaying or denying the payment of legitimate claims." (Emphasis added.)
Ahhhhh. I see it clearly now. This is not about making something illegal, because the RCWs and WACs make it illegal already. This is about increasing the amount of money trial lawyers can make from potential lawsuits.
Note that even if it wasn't already illegal, they could make it illegal by just modifying the WACs, which the insurance commissioner essentially has the power to do. So clearly, this is not, as they claim, about making something illegal that is already illegal, and even if it wasn't, that could be made illegal far more easily. But what couldn't be done as easily through regulation is fattening the wallets of the trial lawyers.
Once again, the Approve 67 folks are lying, and doing it specifically to cover up their own financial motivation.
Posted by pudge at October 10, 2007 12:26 AM | Email ThisMight be good for Republicans to sit this one out as a party. Besides, Republicans need to keep their powder dry for the next election.
Because of all the deceptive ads, this referendum is one of those I know which side I favor but have to read the ballot to figure out which vote is in favor of that side.
Posted by: swatter on October 10, 2007 08:20 AMI gave you the facts on this ad. It is clearly false: it is illegal to deny a legitimate claim in Washington.
THAT is my claim, that Approve 67 is lying in this (and other) ads.
I am not going to war over this. I just saw an ad lying last night, so I posted the facts.
Posted by: pudge on October 10, 2007 08:42 AMI see so much garbage being put out there on this issue, I don't see how one party or the other can benefit.
I pointed out the opposing side also had a phony ad.
Dueling lies by the trial lawyers and the insurance companies.
Posted by: swatter on October 10, 2007 03:10 PMPudge has convinced me, not that my instinct didn't place lawyers well below insurance companies anyway.
"Keep their powder dry"?? Isn't that exactly why the Republican base, and their contributors, are abandoning the party? There's only one party fighting for power, and it sure isn't the Republicans.
Posted by: ForgetPoliticalConsequences on October 11, 2007 09:40 AMIt's really even worse than this. What 67 really is about, is socializing auto insurance. As it is now, the dirty secret, barely mentioned in the big Insurance news stories like the one done by Anderson Cooper on CNN, is that some insurance companies DO play claims. Ah Hah! So it sounds like there is capitalism at work in the insurance market. One can invest in a reputable firm like State Farm, and get their claims payed promptly, or one can go with a firm like Allstate, and face a fight the whole way.
Does anyone care to guess if there's a difference in monthly premium costs with the cut-rate firms vs. the quality firms? And does anyone care to speculate why some firms will take high risk insurees, and others are more cautious with whom they will insure?
The net is that by forcing all insurance companies to face fines if they refuse to pay a claim, we are removing the judgement of the insurance actuaries and lawyers in weeding out fraud and structuring their risk properly, and replacing it with government bureaucracy. This sounds quite a bit like what Progressives are trying to do with Health Care.
You get what you pay for with insurance like everything else. There will always be the fantastic, one-sided, made-for-60-minutes scare story about the poor lady who didn't get her claim settled. But for those of us who drive carefully, and pay for a better quality policy, from a better quality company, we are about to start funding the risky and lower quality companies and drivers if 67 passes.
Oh, and the trial lawyers are giddy too, because higher punitive damages equal higher attorney fees.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 11, 2007 10:04 AMEven without this commercial I had plenty of other reasons to be against it.
You're right: this will drive up costs for everyone, except maybe for the people who already pay huge fees for the best policies, as most claim denials or delays are caused by companies trying to restrict claims to the actually legitimate ones in order to keep costs down for ... the other customers!
But this particular commercial was a thinly veiled attempt at getting us to equate "higher attorney fees" with "making bad things illegal," even if those bad things are already illegal.
Posted by: pudge on October 11, 2007 11:11 AM