California insurance agents are having trouble adapting to health care reform

California health insurance

California insurance exchange creates some problems for agents Some insurance agents in California are encountering problems with the state’s insurance exchange, Covered California, as they begin to clash with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The law allows consumers to keep their medical information private, giving them the option to divulge this information under certain circumstances. In the past, agents were able to obtain medical information from their clients with relative easy. Now, however, this information is becoming more difficult to acquire, which is having a…

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California labor law could inadvertently target insurance agents and others

California’s new labor law may have dire implications for insurance agents in the state. The law was enacted late last year and is designed to punish employers that misclassify workers in an attempt to receive discounts on their insurance coverage. The law itself does not make specific mention to insurance agents, but the language in which the law is written is very vague. Agents could easily fall victim to the law simply by providing employers with advice regarding employee classifications. The law allows the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency…

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California homeowners to benefit from new insurance regulations

New rules for homeowners insurance have been implemented in California to help to protect people when disaster strikes their homes. The regulations have been implemented to help consumers to make sure that they have the coverage that they need when they have been paying into an insurance policy and the time comes that they need to make a claim following a disaster. According to Amy Bach, the head of United Policyholders, following a large loss, people frequently discover that they don’t have as much coverage as “they thought they had…

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California auto insurance industry leaders underline online auto policy sales growth

A report from Online Auto Insurance has revealed that recent talks among representatives of the California insurance industry have focused on the necessity for their agents to change their strategy for growing the number of customers who are purchasing their auto insurance online, which underlines the fact that drivers have a wide variety of different options for buying their coverage. Experts in the industry have been observing, over the last few years, that a growing number of individuals who are seeking cheaper premiums for their auto coverage are using the…

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American Agents Alliance initiative seeks discount for consumers maintaining car insurance

A California agents group, the American Agents Alliance, is moving forward with an initiative that would offer a discount to consumers who have persistently maintained their vehicle insurance, no matter their insurer or insurance company.  The current law states that this persistency discount is allowed only when the coverage has been continually kept with the same company.  However, the initiative sought by the Agents Alliance is comparable to Proposition 17 in 2010 – which lost by only 2 percent – and would have permitted consumers to carry their persistency discount…

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