Maryland’s insurance regulator moved to end a long-running confusion over disclosure rules tied to insurance claims history.
The Maryland Insurance Administration said state code requiring notice when claims data drives cancellation or nonrenewal decisions also applies to commercial insurance, not just auto or homeowners.
The agency said carriers, producers and policyholders had repeatedly asked how the statute should be read.
Disclosures must be given both at policy inception and at each renewal cycle.
Some market participants had leaned on an unofficial interpretation suggesting the provision was restricted to personal lines. MIA called that reading flat-out wrong.
The draft bulletin explains the law covers all property and casualty insurers regardless of line, which by definition includes commercial underwriters.
Certain subsections of the code do carve out specific lines, like rules tied to surplus lines commercial carriers or others limited to homeowners, but the section on claims history contains no such boundaries.
MIA will accept comments through Oct. 13. The regulator declined further discussion until the window closes.
For insurers writing commercial policies, the message is blunt: disclosure obligations are broader than some believed.
The draft bulletin points explicitly to § 27-501(n)(2) in Maryland’s insurance statute, interpreting its disclosure mandate as applying across all property/casualty lines—not just private auto or homeowners.
- Maryland courts have adopted the principle that when one section of a statute includes a limitation but another doesn’t, the omission may reflect deliberate legislative design. MIA uses that logic to argue the claims-history disclosure provision intentionally lacks line-specific limits.
- The bulletin calls the “unofficial position” that § 27-501(n)(2) only applies to personal lines legally incorrect.
- The regulation would require insurers to “disclose the practice to an insured at the inception of the policy and at each renewal” when claim history influences cancel/nonrenew decisions.
- The MIA already handles other bulletins under “Disclosure of Practice of Considering Claims History” dating back to 2002. Those earlier bulletins appear under the Property & Casualty category on its website.
Separately, the MIA has recently proposed changes to the Maryland regulations concerning credit history disclosures in private passenger automobile underwriting (COMAR 31.15.11). Those proposals stand apart from the claims-history issue—but they show the agency is active on multiple disclosure fronts.
