Sunshine State To Back Mobile Consumers

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has scheduled a March 31 hearing in Tallahassee, Fla., on proposed insurance travel underwriting regulations.

The proposed regulations would prohibit insurers from using information about past lawful travel or future lawful travel plans to affect underwriting decisions for life insurance or other types of insurance coverage unless they have actuarial evidence to justify that use of travel information.

Insurers could not use travel-related information either as the basis for denying applications for coverage or increasing fees, OIR officials say.

A state law already bans travel-based discrimination by life insurers, and now the OIR wants to ban travel-based discrimination by all state-regulated insurers, officials say.