The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Texas (Insurance Commissioner) · Texas
- Level
- Sector regulator
- Authority
- Tex. Ins. Code 542.059(b)
- Issued
- 2020-03-23 Mar. 23, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-03-23
- End
- 'in effect until the Governor's suspension and Commissioner's declaration are lifted' (read as 2020-09-30)
- In force
- Mar. 23, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2020
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Other
- Addressees
- all insurers and health maintenance organizations writing in Texas
- Functions reached
- IN claims handling deadlines and premium collection of every Texas insurer
- CB policyholders
- OP
- Collection
- State utilities, housing and agriculture agencies AGY-ST-UTILITIES-HOUSING-AG
Operative words
(as read on the Department's page) The Commissioner declared COVID-19 a disaster under Insurance Code 542.059(b), which together with the Governor's suspension extended claim-handling deadlines by 15 days; carriers must continue to 'promptly identify, evaluate, and resolve claims' and 'promptly acknowledge receipt'; TDI encourages carriers to offer grace periods, temporary suspension of payments and payment plans for policyholders experiencing financial hardship and to 'work directly with policyholders to resolve issues and minimize the effects of any penalties.'
Enforcement
Tex. Ins. Code ch. 542 (prompt payment of claims); ch. 82 (disciplinary authority)
Notes
Companion TDI bulletins B-0010-20 (March 25, 2020, workers' compensation issues) and B-0019-20 (April 10, 2020, suspension of workers' compensation provisions) are saved as AGY-ST-COURTS-043 and AGY-ST-COURTS-045.
Retrieval noteThe Department's server returns a 'Page unavailable' block page to headless browsers, so the render captured an error page and was discarded. Wayback render produced no PDF.