Insurance commissioner says bills do not hurt public disclosure

If your house burns down, I don’t believe the public has a right to know your name, address and how much the insurance company paid you for your loss.

The Seattle Times’ April 8 editorial agrees with my office on one of those points — although the rationale offered for the rest of its disagreements lacks context.

The editorial — “Bills requested by WA insurance commissioner bypass transparency” — takes aim at two provisions in two pieces of legislation, Senate Bill 5419 and Senate Bill 5262.

On SB 5419, The Times argues that information showing an insurance company dragging its feet after a wildfire would no longer be publicly accessible. That’s a misrepresentation of what the bill does.

Ninety days after the claim closes, insurers must report: The address, date and cause of the fire; the amount the company paid; the origin and cause of the fire; and the company tracking number.

No “consumer watchdog” could monitor whether an insurance company was slow in making payments without knowing coverage limits and the specifics of the loss. The information isn’t reported until three months after the claim closes, so that hypothetical feels far-fetched.

They could, however, request info on complaints filed with our office from people being mistreated by their insurance company. We’re happy to show our work to help consumers, while protecting their personal financial information.

The exemption in SB 5262 came at the request of the providers submitting their information. We don’t regulate them but do ask for their data, for aggregate reporting to the Legislature. They asked for the same exemptions we give to the entities we regulate (established in SSB 5806, which passed both chambers unanimously in 2024 with no interest from The Times).

We offered to strike that exemption after a request from the newspaper publishers’ lobbyist during a hearing and worked with the publishers and the state medical association on an amendment to narrow the exemption.

The information exempted under these bills belongs to private citizens.

These bills clarify existing law; they don’t curtail anyone’s right to public information. The only special interest involved is my interest in strengthening the protections private citizens have over their personal information.