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State of Oklahoma

Posted: Jan 20, 2020 1:34 PMUpdated: Jan 20, 2020 1:55 PM

Oklahoma Insurance Department Focused on Change

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Garrett Giles

Glen Mulready made quite a bit of noise during his first year as Oklahoma’s Insurance Commissioner.

One big change was made in the realm of customer assistance. Commissioner Mulready (pictured) said they cut down the time it should take for insurance companies to get back to them when a customer requests assistance.

The Oklahoma Insurance Department looked across the country to see how the State of Oklahoma compares with other states. Commissioner Mulready said the state was out of the norm compared to other states.

Through the legislative process, the Oklahoma Insurance Department was able to reduce the time for comliance to 20 days. Commissioner Mulready said 15 to 20 days is more of the norm when it comes to compliance from other insurance companies, which is why they made the change. The number of days for insurance companies to comply before legislation was approved in 2019 was 30 days.

In addition to this, Commissioner Mulready said customer protection is his department’s number one goal, which means making sure insurance companies are abiding by contracts they have with consumers.

The needs to be balanced with being business friendly. Commissioner Mulready said this means being open and responsive to the insurance markets/companies that want to do business in Oklahoma. He said they want companies that are going to offer legit and sound products up and running in the state as soon as possible.

With the proper checks and balances of course.

In terms of health insurance, Commissioner Mulready said health plans dropped from six to one when the Affordable Care Act came into play in 2010. However, health care plans are on the rise again in Oklahoma.

This is great news because the individual market place has stabilized. Commissioner Mulready said that means more peole want to come and do more business in Oklahoma. He said that gives people choices.

There are now two health care plans available to Oklahomans. Commissioner Mulready said they have three in the Oklahoma City and Cleveland areas in the state.

In his first six months, Commissioner Mulready and the Oklahoma Insurance Department were able to recover $5.1-million dollars on behalf of consumers from their consumer assistance platform. Commissioner Mulready said this number exceeded the $3.8-million that was recovered by the Oklahoma Insurance Department in 2018. He said they are helping you get money to you that is due to you.

Two vehicles are also glso given away by the Oklahoma Insurance Department in 2019. Commissioner Mulready said they have field representatives that travel across the state which is why they have the vehicles in the first place. He said his department had more vehicles than they needed, so they gave the two vehicles bakc to the state. This should save the department $8,000 a year.

Going paperless is another change the Oklahoma Insurance Department is trying to make. Commissioner Mulready said there is substantial savings for the department as they swith over to technolgy. He said they have someone in their offices in Oklahoma City that has been devoted to doing nothing but scan documents full-time for a full year.


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