Frankly Mad
“It’s very, very disappointing. I’ve just pretty much run out of patience.”
—Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland. Holland said she is “grossly disappointed and frankly mad” about a continuing backlog of more than 200,000 unpaid health insurance claims in her state’s workers’ insurance plan and that the backlog at the HealthChoice plan is “absolutely unacceptable.” Holland said the problem is forcing some hospitals and health care providers to refuse to honor the insurance plan and demand cash for their services. She said officials are working on a plan to make prepayments to providers whose claims are caught up in the backlog, which could take months to eliminate.AP
Adequate Funding Needed
“We’ve seen what happens when a large storm hits our coast. … If we don’t put adequate funding in place for the 2009 season, we could wreck our insurance markets and the state budget with one more Hurricane Ike.”
—David VanDelinder, executive director of the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas. The IIAT is urging state lawmakers to come up with a viable plan for funding the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), which Gov. Rick Perry has decreed is a top priority for the Texas Legislature this year. Lawmakers have debated several solutions but so far none has risen to the top. The storms of 2008 cost TWIA six times the premium collected in the previous year, IIAT noted. In just one year, 2008 storms depleted a 36-year surplus of reserves, and recent scientific storm models estimate potential damage from another large storm in Texas as high as $8 billion. Research from the Perryman Group in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina, found Texas’ economic success is directly linked to Gulf Coast industries. Approximately 40 percent of jobs and incomes across the state are tied to coastal industries, such as transportation and oil and gas.
No Tort Crisis
“I call upon the Legislature to produce facts —not myths or urban legends —but proof of the necessity of the measures that have been introduced. … Some of the supporters of this legislation know that Oklahoma does not have a tort crisis.”
—Attorney Jon Parsley, president of the Oklahoma Bar Association. Parsley, of Guymon, Okla., blasted legislative proposals to change the state’s civil justice system, charging that the measures are an assault on the judiciary and would harm average Oklahomans. He said supporters of tort reform legislation are using “untruths and partisan politics” to make the case that the state is facing a lawsuit crisis that is driving up insurance costs. He pointed out that a 2006 survey of Oklahoma trial judges found that 90 percent of judges believed there was no litigation crisis requiring legislative changes. The same survey found that there was no severe problem with frivolous lawsuits. AP
Topics Texas Legislation Oklahoma
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Let Good Adjusters, Not Expensive Lawyers, Make the Difference on Claims, CEO Says 
Ford Recalls 668,000 2014 F-150 Pickup Trucks Over Transmission Issue 
Big ‘I’ Report: Independent Agency Channel Placed 62% of Premiums in 2023 
Workers Sue Disney, Say They Were Wrongly Induced to Move to Florida From This Issue
