Texas Insurance Department has made disciplinary information harder to find

With governments everywhere moving much of the people's business online for easy accessibility, the Texas Insurance Department has taken a big step in the opposite direction.

Until September, the department, which promises to protect insurance customers, publicly released the names of insurance companies and agents who violated state rules. The September announcement, for example, noted that Great American Assurance Co. was fined $195,000 for failure to file policy forms or endorsements containing property and casualty benefits and that the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association failed to process claims in a timely manner or pay claims for storm damage that is a covered loss. Information on violators was also available in the department's newsletter, TDInSight.

No longer.

Less than two months after Gov. Rick Perry appointed Eleanor Kitzman state insurance commissioner, the department abandoned its longtime practice of naming names. The information is now available, but with some heavy strings attached. You have to write and ask for it.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/05/05/3938702/texas-insurance-department-has.html#storylink=cpy

[font color=green]As a former employee of TDI, I am disgusted that the new commissioner is assisting in the lack of transparency. Legal enforcement at TDI was usually a joke, but if they are going to hide the names of the violaters then why bother having an insurance agency.[/font]