: skip to main skip to sidebar Pages Blog Home Our mission : consumer protection Insurance Consumer Hotline Tuesday , January 31, 2012 Non-profit health insurer surplus legislation advances in WA legislature A bill we requested , Senate Bill 5247, was approved by a key state Senate committee last . night The bill would allow us , when considering premium rates proposed by non-profit health insurers , to take into account the large surpluses that the companies have built up in recent years . Surpluses are not the same thing as . reserves Theres' been some confusion out there on this point . These surpluses have grown dramatically over the past decade . The state's three major nonprofit health insurers together now have more than 2.4 billion in . surplus Meanwhile , the cost of individual: skip to main skip to sidebar Pages Blog Home Our mission : consumer protection Insurance Consumer Hotline Tuesday , January 31, 2012 What's a health care exchange Stateline , a news service that covers state government , put together a story summarizing the new health care exchanges scheduled to launch in 2014, how they work , and the status of the efforts to create them at the state level . From the : article Considered the engines of the national health law , state exchanges are online marketplaces designed to make it easier for individuals and small businesses to shop for insurance policies . They will also be one-stop enrollment centers for low-income people who qualify for Medicaid and moderate income individuals who qualify for federal tax . credits There's a tremendous amount of: skip to main skip to sidebar Pages Blog Home Our mission : consumer protection Insurance Consumer Hotline Friday , January 27, 2012 Tacoma man pleads guilty to forgery and insurance fraud A Tacoma man has pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery and one count of felony insurance fraud for filing a false auto insurance . claim Cash B . Knott , 46, pleaded guilty Jan . 13 in Pierce County Superior . Court On Nov . 6th , less than a month after getting coverage from Progressive Direct Insurance Co . for his 1992 Ford Ranger pickup , Knott filed a 5,674 insurance claim with Progressive . He said someone had scratched the paint , stolen his chrome wheels and tires , and stolen his navigation and entertainment system , 1,000 watt amplifier and other electronic . components He providedThe Insurance Information Institute has released some interesting data about the odds of dying in a wide variety of accidental (or sometimes not-so-accidental) injuries.According to the III, your odds of dying from:A car accident: 1 in 303.Being shot: 1 in 306.Falling down the stairs: 1 in 2,018.An airplane crash: 1 in 7,032.Falling off a ladder: 1 in 8,912A lightning strike: 1 in 84,079.See the link above for more examples.: skip to main skip to sidebar Pages Blog Home Our mission : consumer protection Insurance Consumer Hotline Thursday , January 26, 2012 Anti-fraud group releases its Hall of Shame for 2011 The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud has compiled its annual Insurance Fraud Hall of Shame list . And this batch is pretty : horrifying A debt-plagued Arizona homeowner torched his home for 440,000 in insurance money and killed a witness and the witness' family . He got 14 years in prison for the insurance fraud , and the death sentence for the . murders A Rhode Island radio DJ who wanted to upgrade her home and pool had several friends simulate storm damage to her home smashing a hole in her roof with a tree limb , messing up the pool , etc . The problem : The weather was fair and in the 70s that day .: : skip to main skip to sidebar Pages Blog Home Our mission : consumer protection Insurance Consumer Hotline Wednesday , January 25, 2012 Long-term care insurance : Is it right for you Kaiser Health News and the Washington Post have a good article today on the pros and cons of long term care insurance From the : article The question of whether to get long-term care insurance bedevils consumers and their advisers . Unlike medical insurance , it is intended primarily to cover people who need assistance with so-called activities of daily living for example , the care of a dementia patient or someone recovering from a broken hip . It can be expensive : Premiums range from 1,000 to 5,000 a year , depending on the age , sex and health of the purchaser as well as the extent of the coverage . And: skip to main skip to sidebar Pages Blog Home Our mission : consumer protection Insurance Consumer Hotline Wednesday , January 25, 2012 Insurer fined 100,000 A company that issued thousands of medical insurance policies to college students has been fined 100,000 for charging unapproved rates , as well as other . violations Indiana-based Unicare Life and Health Insurance Co . has agreed to pay the . fine Between mid-2004 and mid-2009, Unicare sold thousands of medical insurance policies to students at community colleges , technical schools , colleges and universities across Washington state . Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler’s office later determined that there were substantial problems with the coverage . Among : them For more than six years , the company used unapproved methods to