The Dallas Morning News Watchdog  reports on Sen. Larry Taylor’s (TP-Friendswood) bill to make things even more difficult for Texas consumers to obtain reasonable settlements from their insurers.  Taylor incredibly claims that this bill – carefully crafted by the insurance lobby – is a consumer protection statute.  Taylor obviously works under the “Big Lie” principal.  When questioned about some of the provisions in his bill, Taylor was unable to respond – perhaps because being the bought and paid for tool of the insurance industry does not also make you very smart.

The Texas Supreme Court has essentially written actions for bad faith denial of coverage out of the statutes – so right now it is a winning strategy for an insurance company to just deny coverage.  If 10% of their customers shrug and say “Okay” the impact on the insurer’s  bottom line is tremendous.  But now Taylor wants to make it even easier for Texas insurers to deny claims.  Senate Bill 1628 has been characterized as the “Christmas List for insurance companies.”  Among other things, Taylor’s bill requires insureds to provide a complicated sworn statement to their insurer before filing suit, and cuts back the penalties on insurance companies for failing to pay claims.  Among the brilliantly worded language in the bill is the following:

An insurer knowingly fails to act in compliance with this subchapter only if the insurer is actually aware of the insurer’s failure to pay a claim for which the insurer is liable.

So the insurer is not responsible unless you prove that it knew that it knew that it was denying a viable claim?