PCI Urging Colo. Lawmakers to Reject Insurance Data Reporting Bill

The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) testified
before the Colorado House Business Affairs and Labor Committee on Friday that legislation (HB 1330), which would impose extensive new data reporting requirement on property casualty insurers would not help consumers make more informed decisions.

House Bill 1330 would require property casualty insurers file with the commissioner of insurance and make publicly available a broad range of data including information on new and closed claims, the severity of injuries and the amount of economic damages associated with claims, information on the historical accuracy of an insurer’s incurred loss projections and information on expenses.

“We believe this bill is a solution in search of a problem,” said Kelly
Campbell, regional manager for PCI. “Consumers buy insurance based on their individual needs, the assets they have to protect and their budgets. While we fully support arming consumers with information, the type of information being requested will not help anyone make a more informed insurance purchase. Simply providing
consumers with more numbers does not necessarily give them more useable information. The bill would create an administrative burden that would add costs to insurance without providing any benefit.”

The bill would also reportedly prevent insurers from using loss experiences from other states and nationwide experiences in certain situations when setting rates.

Under current law insurers are already required to use Colorado claims experience to set rates except for the introduction of a new product or when a small insurer has limited claims experience in the state.

“This legislation would act as a disincentive for insurers to innovate and create new insurance programs,” said Campbell. “In addition this bill could hurt small carriers in the market. There are over 200 insurers that write property and casualty insurance in Colorado and the vast majority of them are smaller companies. These restrictions to use only Colorado data could make it difficult for them to price their product competitively in our state.”