Dave Jones, the Insurance Commissioner for the state of California, has announced that the California Department of Insurance (CDI) has managed a recovery of over $54 million for consumers through the investigations of complaints in addition to examinations of the market conduct of insurers last year.
Commissioner Jones said that the top priority of the CDI is to protect consumers. He went on to say that as a result of “a lot of hard work” by the staff at the Department, they were able to return $54 million to the people of California. He explained that the examinations of market conduct and consumer complaint services “are important tools that we employ to respond to the needs of consumers and proactively go after any activities that pose a threat to policyholders.”
The Consumer Services and Market Conduct Branch at CDI has two different divisions. The first concentrates on assisting consumers and the second works to analyze the actions of insurance companies.
The Consumer Services Division also runs the Consumer Communications Bureau, which is responsible for assisting individuals who call the consumer hotline. On the other hand, the Claims Services Bureau, the Health Claims Bureau and the Rating and Underwriting Services Bureau are responsible for handling the complaints that have been made by consumers to the CDI.
There are an average of about 200,000 calls made to the consumer hotline every year. Through the resolution of the complaints alone, the Consumer Services Division was able to recover more than $49 million last year.
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