The Consumer Affairs Unit staff at the Department receives an average of 1600 complaint/inquiries
per quarter. Incoming complaints vary by product lines. In the second quarter, the majority or
44 percent of complaints were related to Accident and Health product lines. The remainder of
complaints were related to Auto (17 percent), homeowners (8 percent), Life and Annuities (7
percent), general liability (2 percent), fire (1 percent) and miscellaneous.
Not all inquires or complaints submitted to the insurance department are subject to recovery.
This quarter, of the 242 complaints eligible for recovery 49% or $639,983 of recovered funds
came from complaints related to the accident and health product lines, 19% or $241,693 came
from auto product lines and 15% or 193,347 from fire product lines.
Each quarter the Department’s Consumer Affairs Unit analyzes the calls received by the public
and reports on the types of issues resolved and amounts of money recovered on behalf of
consumers.
Complaints are made in five categories: Marketing/Sales, Premium/rating, Underwriting, Unfair
Claim Practice and Other. This quarter, 42% of claims were attributed to unfair claim practices,
nearly 10% to Marketing/Sales, 7% to Premium/rating, and 5% to underwriting.