If you wish to perceive how insurance coverage legal guidelines actually get made, Oklahoma simply handed the remainder of the nation a case research.
Earlier this month, Oklahoma Watch revealed a bit asking a query that ought to make each policyholder uneasy: “Is State Farm writing Oklahoma insurance coverage regulation?” 1 That query was not rhetorical. It arose after lawmakers overtly acknowledged {that a} proposed invoice weakening client protections was, the truth is, a “State Farm request invoice.”
The laws in query, Senate Invoice 726, would have stripped away a long-standing enforcement mechanism that penalizes insurers for delaying cost of property insurance coverage claims. In plain English, the invoice would have made it cheaper for insurers to slow-walk claims whereas owners wait, wrestle, and borrow in opposition to their futures to rebuild. It’s been launched at a time when Oklahomans are already going through a number of the highest owners insurance coverage premiums within the nation.
What makes this so revealing is not only that an insurer proposed the invoice, however that some legislators appeared stunned when that reality was overtly mentioned on the Home ground. One lawmaker requested the plain query: Why would the Legislature take away the one significant consequence for late cost when policyholders are already struggling? That query ought to have been requested a lot earlier. Others, nonetheless, carried the invoice ahead anyway, seemingly comfy advancing language that clearly benefited one of many largest insurers within the nation.
That is how affect really works. It’s not often dramatic. It reveals up as “technical fixes,” “clarifications,” or “trade requests.” Insurance coverage commerce teams and main carriers make use of seasoned lobbyists who know find out how to body these adjustments as impartial, even useful. By the point a invoice reaches the ground, probably the most consequential coverage choices have already been made behind closed doorways.
Oklahoma Watch deserves credit score for pulling again that curtain. Most states would not have a newsroom keen or ready to do this sort of deep dive. The result’s that comparable payments quietly transfer by means of legislatures throughout the nation with little scrutiny. The general public not often hears about them until one thing goes flawed later, when claims are delayed, denied, or underpaid, and owners are informed the regulation now not helps them.
What makes this notably troubling is the broader context. Oklahoma’s Lawyer Basic has already taken motion in opposition to State Farm over allegations of systemic claim-handling abuses associated to hail losses. On the identical time, lawmakers have been being requested to weaken the very statutory provisions that discourage delay and gamesmanship in claims dealing with. That contradiction ought to bother anybody who believes insurance coverage is meant to be a promise, not a revenue technique.
This isn’t about demonizing our lawmakers. Some are clearly being performed. Others, nonetheless, know precisely what they’re doing and depend on complexity and public disengagement to maneuver the insurers’ ball down the sphere. The system works greatest for insurers when the general public isn’t paying consideration.
That’s the reason this story issues past Oklahoma. Each state wants an Oklahoma Watch. Each state wants journalists who ask who wrote the invoice, who advantages from it, and who bears the danger when it turns into regulation. Till that occurs, policyholders, public adjusters, and insurance coverage restoration contractors will preserve discovering too late that the foundations modified whereas nobody was trying.
Oklahoma’s expertise is a warning. The one query is whether or not different states are listening and what we are able to do about it.
For me, I’m talking on behalf of the American Policyholders Affiliation subsequent Wednesday on the SRC Summit, the place I’ll spotlight “the New Playbook” that the insurance coverage foyer is utilizing in opposition to contractors. Insurance coverage restoration contractors are within the crosshairs of the insurance coverage trade. If you’re a roofer or contractor concerned in insurance coverage claims, this is a crucial message for you, one which Doug Quinn and the APA are elevating and taking up.
On February 23, I shall be at a PCAPIA occasion with Amy Bach of United Policyholders talking about new California insurance coverage legal guidelines. I’ll then be a part of public adjusters as we stroll the halls of the California legislature about points going through policyholders. The plight of wildfire victims and their incapacity to receives a commission full advantages rapidly will definitely be a subject of debate.
I do know these volunteer actions are minuscule in comparison with the coordinated military of full-time lobbyists the insurance coverage foyer employs. But when not us, who? Each motion supporting policyholder rights is necessary.
Thought For The Day
“Energy isn’t revealed by hanging exhausting or typically, however by hanging true.”
— Honoré de Balzac
1 J.C. Hallman. “Lawmakers Surprise if State Farm is Writing Oklahoma Insurance coverage Legislation.” Oklahoma Watch (Feb. 2, 2026). Out there on-line at https://oklahomawatch.org/2026/02/02/lawmakers-wonder-if-state-farm-is-writing-oklahoma-insurance-law/