In the News
Regulatory Update

• November 2019
• 

Adjusters: The Washington state Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that individual insurance adjusters could be held personally liable under its insurance bad faith and consumer protection laws.

The state's highest court ruled 5-4 in favor of Allstate Insurance and one of its adjusters in a case where a claimant was dissatisfied with his settlement with the company.

The case stretches back to 2007, when an uninsured motorcyclist struck a truck driven by Moun Keodalah, who was injured. The motorcyclist was killed, according to the court opinion.

Life Insurance: California's governor has signed a bill that extends the state's law covering electronic communications between life insurers and policyholders indefinitely.

The new law amounts to an indefinite authorization of written records relating to the business of life insurance to be provided by electronic transmission if the insurer complies with the specified requirements.

A licensee who is required to transmit a record by return receipt, registered mail, certified mail, signed written receipt of delivery, or other method of delivery evidencing actual receipt by the person, and who transmits that record electronically, must maintain a process or system that demonstrates proof of delivery and actual receipt of the record.