Insurers pleased as Colorado General Assembly keeps auto system intact

The Colorado General Assembly adjourned its concluding session, which the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) said was marked by the defeat of a wide variety of legislation that would have forced consumers to pay higher insurance premiums and been detrimental to the insurance marketplace.

“As we expected, this was a very contentious session,” said Kelly Campbell, PCI regional manager. “However, we achieved our top priority which was to preserve the current tort-based auto insurance system.”

Campbell said the industry worked with lawmakers to “successfully thwart legislation that sought to roll back consumer savings and roll on mandated coverages.”

Insurers also beat back legislation that has been considered during past sessions such as a proposal (SB 109) to prohibit the use of credit-based insurance scoring and an effort (HB 1097) to reverse workers compensation reforms by allowing injured employees to choose their own medical provider.

“Given the harmful legislation that the industry faced, we are pleased with the outcome of the session,” Campbell said.

This year, none of the problematic interim auto insurance committee bills passed, PCI said. Defeated were bills to require consumers to purchase medical payments coverage (HB 1036), to convert auto liability coverage into a form of no-fault auto insurance (HB1044) and to require purchase of “emergency medical payments coverage” (SB 19).

The General Assembly also defeated legislation (HB 1043) to create an insurance consumer board as well as an attempt (HCR 1011) to place on the November ballot the issue of whether the state should have an elected insurance commissioner.

A bill, HB 1203, which would have given the Public Utilities Commission the power to review insurer rate filings was also defeated.

A bill pushed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate that initially would have required insurers to reveal what they felt was sensitive claim reserve information and to base rates exclusively on Colorado experience was substantially amended and made much more palatable for insurers. Through HB 1006, insurers were relieved of the requirement to mail a copy of the entire statute to persons making auto collision claims.

On the other hand, a primary seat belt proposal (HB 1125) that was supported by insurer groups was defeated.