OLYMPIA, Wash. – Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler extended his emergency order directing all state-regulated health insurers to make additional coverage changes to aid consumers during the coronavirus pandemic. His order is in effect until April 4 and requires health insurers to:
Continue coverage for providing telehealth via methods including telephone and video chat tools such as Facetime, Facebook Messenger video chat, Google Hangout video, Skype and Go-to-Meeting. Cover all medically necessary diagnostic testing for flu and certain other viral…News Archive
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OLYMPIA, Wash. – Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has extended two emergency orders. His order requiring health insurers to waive copays and deductibles for any consumer requiring testing for coronavirus (COVID-19) and his order protecting consumers from receiving surprise bills for lab fees related to medically necessary diagnostic testing for COVID-19 are both extended until March 21, 2021.
Kreidler's order waiving cost-sharing applies to all state-regulated health insurance plans and short-term, limited-duration medical plans. The order on surprise…
OLYMPIA, Wash. – A bill to ban insurers (Senate Bill 5010) from using consumers’ credit scores to determine auto and homeowner insurance premiums was gutted by an insurance industry amendment in the Senate Business, Financial Services & Trade Committee on Feb. 15.
Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler for two decades has called out the unfairness of insurers’ use of credit scoring and has requested a ban twice, first in 2001 and later in 2010 during the economic recession. Now, as consumers struggle with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic…
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Vijay K. Prasad pleaded guilty in King County Superior Court on Jan. 27 to attempted insurance fraud in connection with an auto insurance claim. Prasad will serve 20 days in a community alternative program and will be on unsupervised probation for 20 months.
Officials charged Prasad in 2019 after an investigation by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler’s Criminal Investigations Unit (CIU).
According to the investigation, Prasad filed an auto insurance claim with Progressive Insurance on Sept. 20, 2018. She stated that she was in a collision on…