New Kansas Bill Seeks to Improve Car Accident Insurance Benefits

The Kansas House has an important bill dealing with car insurance that the insurance industry wants to bury.  The bill raises the minimum insurance limits for the first time since 1981, and gets rid of a credit which often makes underinsured motorist insurance unavailable even though the customer has paid for the coverage.

I know that there are other things to do today, but please make this a top priority and call and e-mail each and every one of these people.  Ask them to allow a vote on HB 2104, and to NOT send it to interim.

Your e-mail can be as short as:  “I understand that you are on the House Insurance Committee.  I am a concerned citizen here in Kansas and ask that you vote in favor of HB 2104 so that minimum insurance limits are raised and so that underinsured motorist insurance is always available for customers who pay for that coverage.”

Kansas Legislative Hotline: 1-800-432-3924: Allows you to leave brief messages for legislators and request copies of bills and other legislative documents

Key points:

• Work HB 2104 and allow an up or down vote in the House
  • Increases bodily injury minimum limits, unchanged since 1981, from 25/50 to 50/100
  • Ends an insurer credit that limits Kansans’ UIM (underinsured motorist) coverage, which they are required to purchase but cannot often access
  • Issue was already studied in interim committee, and this is the third consecutive session with hearings on the issue (2015, 2016, 2017); action needed now
• There’s no “driver tax” in Kansas
  • Premium costs increase significantly and frequently due to ratings by insurance companies; these increases have nothing to do with minimum limits.
  • See AP article from 2.13.17 about increasing insurance costs: “Drivers see higher premiums after not-at-fault crashes“
• Auto insurance should cover the costs of auto accidents
  • Mandatory minimums should be reasonable so that injured people don’t have to pay the bills of wrongdoers and costs aren’t passed onto health care providers.
  • Mandatory minimums were set in 1981 and are no longer reasonable.
• Insurance “stacking” is not permitted in Kansas
  • Kansans are worse off than other states with 25/50 limits.
  • Eliminating the UIM offset and increasing limits are modest ways to assure Kansans have reasonable coverage for medical bills.