Here is a story that warms my heart. I am not a big fan of fines, but an $11,000,000 fine is a good thing. Farmers Insurance was fined for not following the California Fair Claims Practices Act. WHOOPIE!
Seriously. This is important. The insurance industry routinely thumbs their nose at these regulations which are designed to make them do certain things when you have a claim. Farmers violations included:
- Delay investigations into claims;
- Delaying payments of claims;
Farmers says the fines are related to administrative issues. What is administrative in not paying claims timely? Its pretty simple. You have 40 days to accept or deny a claim or request more time. Either you do it or you dont. Once you accept a claim, you have a set amount of time to pay the claim. Either you wrote the check or you didn’t. End of story.
I am glad to see the Department of Insurance start to crack down on this. Maybe the insurance companies will start to take this more serious now.