Life Insurance Consumer Advocacy Center

The Life Insurance Consumer Advocacy Center has repeatedly been denied available data

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PLEASANT HILL, CA –The California Department of Insurance (CDI) has repeatedly denied lawful and proper Public Records Act requests by the Life Insurance Consumer Advocacy Center (LICAC) for statistics in CDI’s possession on complaints by California consumers concerning life insurance and annuities. The requested information concerns the number and types of such complaints as well as reports and data that were used in the preparation of the tables and data presented in the California Insurance Commissioner’s statutorily required  Annual Report.

LICAC has requested this data to assist its efforts to advocate for consumers of life insurance, including annuities, and to work for passage of laws and regulations that protect life insurance consumers. The statistics requested by LICAC are important information that could be used to establish a baseline against which to compare complaints in the future. Among other things the baseline would reveal whether the recently enacted SB 263 (Dodd) reduces or increases the number of complaints by consumers. Consumer groups including LICAC opposed SB 263 because it allows agents to falsely tell consumers that the agent has no conflicts of interest with the consumer and that the agent is obligated to make only recommendations that are in the best interest of the consumer.

“Our California Public Records Act requests with the California Department of Insurance have been wrongfully denied.” Said Brian Brosnahan, Executive Director of LICAC. “LICAC has attempted to work with CDI to acquire this data. After multiple denials that it even had the records, CDI finally admitted it had them but invoked inapplicable privileges to justify denying the requests, and failed to demonstrate how those privileges apply (despite the statutory requirement that it do so). Why is CDI trying to hide this information?”

Read here for further details on this issue: https://www.lifeinsuranceconsumeradvocacycenter.org/cdi-hiding-data/.

For more information about LICAC, please visit https://www.lifeinsuranceconsumeradvocacycenter.org/

About the Life Insurance Consumer Advocacy Center:  The Life Insurance Consumer Advocacy Center is a nonprofit social service organization that advocates for consumers of life insurance and works for passage of laws and regulations that protect life insurance consumers.

###