SB 495

(1) Existing law establishes the Department of Insurance, headed by the Insurance Commissioner, which regulates insurers and insurance practices. When an insurer obtains reinsurance, existing law requires them to communicate all the representations of the original insured, and also all the knowledge and information they possess, as specified, which are material to the risk.

This bill would require, on or before March 1, 2026, and on or before March 1 every year thereafter, an admitted insurer in a group with written premiums in the prior year from specified lines of insurance totaling $50,000,000 to submit a report to the commissioner that includes data and information necessary to understand its reinsurance program placement data and use of probabilistic catastrophic models for the previous year. The bill would require the report to include data from the latest available reinsurance treaty year. The bill would require the insurer to promptly respond to inquiries from the commissioner upon submission of the report. The bill would require the commissioner to post to the department's internet website an aggregated report of the data in the report from insurers. The bill would require all other information submitted to the commissioner under these provisions be confidential, among other things, and exempt from the California Public Records Act.

The bill would require an admitted insurer to pay a civil penalty, to be fixed by the commissioner, but not to exceed $5,000 for each 30-day period the insurer is not in compliance with the reporting provisions. The bill would authorize an insurer to request, and the commissioner to grant, a 30-day extension to submit the report if needed due to unintended or unforeseen circumstances. The bill would authorize the commissioner to find that the failure to submit the report on time was willful and to increase the civil penalty to an amount not to exceed $10,000 for each 30-day period, up to a maximum of $100,000. The bill would allow the penalty to be appealed under specified provisions.

Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.

The bill would make related findings and declarations.

(2) Existing law defines the measure of indemnity for a loss under an open fire insurance policy and specifies time limits under which an insured must collect the full replacement cost of the loss. For a residential property insurance policy, existing law requires the measure of damages available to a policyholder to use to rebuild or replace the insured home at another location to be the amount that would have been recoverable had the insured dwelling been rebuilt at its original location, as specified. In the event of a total loss of an insured structure, existing law prohibits a policy issued or delivered in this state from containing a provision that limits or denies payment of the building code upgrade cost or the replacement cost on the basis that the insured has decided to rebuild at a new location or to purchase a built home at a new location. Existing law requires the insured to give written notice to the insurer of any loss within 60 days after the loss unless the time is extended in writing by the insurer.

The bill would prohibit an insurer from requiring an insured to provide a proof of loss less than 100 days after a loss relating to a state of emergency, as defined. The bill would require the insurer to provide the insured one or more extensions of 3 months for good cause, if the insured, acting in good faith and with reasonable diligence, encounters a delay in providing a proof of loss in specified circumstances beyond the control of the insured.

Existing law requires a residential property insurer to allow an insured that has suffered a loss relating to a declared state of emergency to combine the policy limits for primary dwelling and other structures, and to use the combined amount to rebuild or replace the dwelling, as specified. For a total loss of a furnished residence related to a declared state of emergency, existing law requires an insurer to provide an advance partial payment for contents of no less than 30% of the policy limit, as specified, without requiring an itemized claim.

The bill would instead require the insurer to provide 60% of the policy limit applicable to the personal property covered under the policy, up to a maximum of $350,000, when the loss is relating to a declared state of emergency, without requiring an itemized claim. The bill would also authorize an insurer to require an insured to sign an attestation form as a condition of receiving the advance payment for personal property loss stating that the insured acknowledges the residence was furnished and that they reasonably believe the personal property damaged or destroyed had a value that equates or exceeded the amount of the advance payment.