Outgoing Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler says listening is No. 1 task of the elected position

The improvements, he added, included doubling the size of the OIC Consumer Protection team.

“We wound up with a lot more people who were prepared to answer telephones and respond to inquiries coming from consumers,
he said.

The Washington legislature also established OIC’s Criminal Investigations Unit at the nudging of Kreidler.

“I’d say the major driver was certainly some of the news coverage that was coming out about some of the staged automobile accidents and the problems around that because it tended to be much more kind of a gang type of activity, multiple players,” he said. “It was organized. We effectively had no way of being able to react to that.”

A witness who testified in favor of legislation to create the department ran a fraud department in the California insurance commissioner’s office.

“He found it very easy to come up here to the state of Washington to testify in favor of creating a separate fraud division because he was coming up here to pick up somebody who was actively involved in fraudulent activity with staged Ottawa accidents, and was not going to get arrested and prosecuted in the state of Washington,” Kreidler said. “They were taking him back to California where they had him dead to rights and they would prosecute him there. That made quite an impression on the legislature, all of a sudden, that California was upping us that much — that we were not in a position to be able to really take care of our own.”

Since he first took office, Kreidler said the insurance industry has changed drastically. The biggest change he’s noticed is the “sophistication” of rate filings from insurers, he said.

“It drives me crazy that they sometimes get angry that they said, can’t you deal with these our filings quicker? Can’t you get our approval? Well, they come in with an entirely new program that is untested and they want us to take it on blind faith that this is good for the consumers in the state of Washington,” Kreidler said.

“I’m very reluctant. In fact, I strongly resist being railroaded into an approval process where we have not done a thorough job of making sure that what they want to market is going to be good for consumers and the sophistication of the products that they are putting forward or making it much, much more difficult for insurance regulators across the country… I think the survey work that we do with the companies and where they have to report what they are doing as an insurance company provides incentive for them to recognize that maybe they need to look at things a little bit more globally rather than just at a particular project and how much they’re going to make from it.”

In 2023, the OIC sought feedback on why auto and home insurance complaints had been on the rise since 2021, mostly in auto. Kreidler said most of the complaints were about auto insurance carriers using photo estimating to produce very low repair estimates, not sending adjusters to conduct in-person damage inspections, and not thoroughly explaining why they disagreed with estimates policyholders were given.

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OIC said it asked multiple insurance company vendors that develop and use photo software and artificial intelligence (AI) to create repair estimates to participate in the workshop. None of them responded to the request.

The OIC Consumer Advocacy Program received 467 complaints in April 2023, up from the historic average of 287 a month — a 63% increase.

During a workshop held by OIC in July 2023, the Washington Independent Collision Repairer’s Association (WICRA) questioned the office’s accountability.

According to WICRA’s survey data, only 6.9% of nearly 1,100 photo-based claims were paid in full by insurers without supplements and only 26 of them were accurate.

The survey was on photo estimating — its accuracy, the claims handling process, and the length of time from keys to keys. Questions were sent to more than 65 independent collision repair shops and 30 responded.

Earlier this week, a separate Department of Insurance shared details on the recovery of more than $9.4 million last year for residents, mostly having to do with auto insurance complaints.

Nevada Division of Insurance Consumer Services successfully closed 4,194 consumer complaints including 2,100 auto insurance claim complaints. The division told Repairer Driven News the broad categories of most complaints received and pursued by the division are payment disputes and unfair denial of claims and coverage. The complaints resolved in 2024 added up to $3.3 million recovered for auto claims.

The Division’s Consumer Services and Investigations teams investigate thousands of consumer complaints annually, assisting Nevadans in resolving disputes with their insurance providers, a press release says. These efforts often result in financial recoveries for consumers, ensuring they receive the benefits and services owed under their insurance policies.

“The accomplishments of the Consumer Services section this year are truly outstanding,” said Commissioner Scott Kipper, in the release. “Their dedication to resolving consumer issues has resulted in recoveries that surpass previous Fiscal Year records, further highlighting the Division’s unwavering commitment to protecting Nevada consumers.”

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Featured image: Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler (Provided by Washington State OIC)