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 printed a chunk 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 shopper protections was, in actual fact, 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 householders wait, wrestle, and borrow towards their futures to rebuild. It’s been launched at a time when Oklahomans are already dealing with among the highest householders insurance coverage premiums within the nation.
What makes this so revealing isn’t just that an insurer proposed the invoice, however that some legislators appeared stunned when that reality was overtly mentioned on the Home flooring. 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 truly 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 how you can body these modifications as impartial, even useful. By the point a invoice reaches the ground, essentially the most consequential coverage choices have already been made behind closed doorways.
Oklahoma Watch deserves credit score for pulling again that curtain. Most states wouldn’t have a newsroom prepared or ready to try this sort of deep dive. The result’s that related payments quietly transfer by means of legislatures throughout the nation with little scrutiny. The general public not often hears about them except one thing goes fallacious later, when claims are delayed, denied, or underpaid, and householders are instructed the regulation now not helps them.
What makes this significantly troubling is the broader context. Oklahoma’s Lawyer Basic has already taken motion towards State Farm over allegations of systemic claim-handling abuses associated to hail losses. On the identical time, lawmakers had 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 finest for insurers when the general public is just not 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 maintain discovering too late that the principles 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 towards contractors. Insurance coverage restoration contractors are within the crosshairs of the insurance coverage trade. In case you are a roofer or contractor concerned in insurance coverage claims, this is a vital message for you, one which Doug Quinn and the APA are elevating and taking up.
On February 23, I might be at a PCAPIA occasion with Amy Bach of United Policyholders talking about new California insurance coverage legal guidelines. I’ll then be part of public adjusters as we stroll the halls of the California legislature about points dealing with 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 essential.
Thought For The Day
“Energy is just not revealed by placing laborious or usually, however by placing true.”
— Honoré de Balzac
1 J.C. Hallman. “Lawmakers Marvel if State Farm is Writing Oklahoma Insurance coverage Regulation.” Oklahoma Watch (Feb. 2, 2026). Obtainable on-line at https://oklahomawatch.org/2026/02/02/lawmakers-wonder-if-state-farm-is-writing-oklahoma-insurance-law/