In the first week of Medicare Open Enrollment, thousands of Medicare beneficiaries have contacted the Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s Statewide Health Insurance Benefits Advisors (SHIBA) Program during Medicare open enrollment for advice about their benefits. Here’s what you need to know to ensure your coverage is the best fit for you in 2027.

What’s changing

Three standalone Medicare Part D (prescription drug) plans are leaving the market (one Aetna plan and two HealthSpring plans).

Eleven companies (Aetna, HealthSpring, Humana, Kaiser, Molina, Providence, Regence, SCAN, UnitedHealthcare, WellCare and WellPoint) are reducing their Medicare Advantage plan offerings, meaning a total of 58 Medicare Advantage plans around the state are no longer available for 2027.

Despite the changes, every county in Washington will have a Medicare Advantage plan available.

Some providers may no longer be in network for your Medicare Advantage plan starting Jan. 1, 2027.

You have options!

If you’re losing your Medicare Advantage plan or if your provider is no longer in-network, you have options.

• Open Enrollment started Oct. 15 and ends on Dec. 7 for 2027 Original Medicare plans.
• If you’re losing your Medicare Advantage plan or your provider is no longer in your network, you can also enroll in a new plan during a special enrollment period, beginning Dec. 8 and endings Feb. 28, 2027. (If you make a selection during the Oct. 15 — Dec. 7 open enrollment, you are not eligible for the special open enrollment.)
• Medicare Advantage open enrollment begins Jan. 1 and ends March 31, 2027.

What to do if you’re losing your Medicare Advantage plan

If your Medicare Advantage plan isn’t available for 2027, you have three options.

• Choose a different Medicare Advantage plan available in your county. There is at least one Medicare Advantage plan available in every county in 2027. You can call 1–800-Medicare for help choosing a plan, or you can compare your options here.
• Switch to Original Medicare. The letter from your Medicare Advantage plan saying your plan is no longer available may include information about Medicare Supplement plans, as well.
• If you are on a fixed income and having difficulty paying your Medicare costs, you can apply for the Medicare Savings Program at your local DSHS office, or online.

What to do if your preferred provider will no longer be in-network with your current Medicare Advantage plan:

• Choose a different Medicare Advantage plan available in your county. There is at least one Medicare Advantage plan available in every county in 2027. You can call 1–800-Medicare for help choosing a plan, or you can compare your options here.
• Stay with your current Medicare Advantage plan and find a new doctor/facility that is in-network.
• Switch to Original Medicare, which would allow you to see any doctor that accepts Medicare nationwide. You may or may not be able to enroll in a Medicare Supplement (Medigap) plan to help pay the costs.

If you are on a fixed income and having difficulty paying your Medicare costs, we recommend you apply for the Medicare Savings Program at your local DSHS office, or online.

Where to find more help

SHIBA has resources available online, including the Medicare jumpstart toolkit, which you can order or view online. Our website also has videos on:

• Creating a personalized Medicare.gov account
• Using the Mediare.gov plan finder

SHIBA also offers virtual help sessions. You don’t need to share any personal information and you’re welcome to just listen in.

If you’re a PEBB or SEBB retiree, visit the Health Care Authority website to learn about your options.

For individual plan assistance, contact Medicare at 1–800-MEDICARE or visit the Medicare website and use the Plan Finder to see what plans are available in your area.

Questions during Medicare Open Enrollment? Here’s where to look was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s Consumer Protection team fields all manner of questions from curious insurance consumers.

Some of those questions center on certain insurance products and why a company is or isn’t allowed to sell that product — typically a specific type of policy — in Washington state.

There are certain requirements a company must meet to sell specific insurance products in Washington. The OIC’s role is to ensure those requirements are met; a large part of that is reviewing rate and form filings for any products a company intends to sell. The company needs approval from the OIC on these rates and forms to ensure the products meet legal requirements.

Here’s more information from our website:

Insurance rates are the base cost of insurance a company charges for the risk of a possible loss, such as a totaled car or storm damage to your home. It’s the basic building block that goes into determining premiums. Insurance companies take their base rate and apply their rating factors to determine your premiums.

The OIC does not set rates; it reviews and either approves or denies rate filings from insurance companies. Actuaries review the rate requests to ensure the financial and statistical data they provide is accurate and sufficient to justify a rate change.

How does the OIC review insurance rates?

Insurance forms are the policies themselves. The OIC also reviews a company’s policies to ensure they conform with state and federal insurance laws.

An insurance company might also say they’ve filed this information, but the OIC hasn’t taken action on the filing. All approved filings are available online and you can ask your insurance company’s representative for the SERFF filing number to check its status.

The review process can take weeks and, in some cases, months. The OIC’s actuaries review every line of these filings, which can be hundreds of pages long.

If a representative of your insurance company says they aren’t allowed to sell a product in Washington, it likely means the company chose not to submit this information for approval or wasn’t able to get their products approved. That’s ultimately a business decision on the company’s part; if a product meets the requirements established in state law, the OIC can’t stop a company from offering it.

Are companies ‘not allowed’ to sell certain products? was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Trump administration recently announced that they have disenrolled 760,000 people from the federal health insurance marketplace, claiming these hundreds of thousands of people were fraudulently enrolled in Affordable Care Act plans.

We’re not seeing this happen here in Washington state and as our state-based Exchange notes, we have safeguards in place to prevent fraud.

I am disappointed by the lack of transparency about how the administration made this decision and how quick they are to point to fraud. These are serious allegations, yet from what we have learned, the evidence used to justify kicking someone off their insurance is severely lacking.

Not submitting any claims is not evidence that a person was fraudulently enrolled. We know it’s common for healthy people to not use their insurance. It stands to reason that people without any significant health issues don’t always seek out preventive care or routine checkups. We also know that many Americans are facing long wait-times to see a primary care provider, even when they have insurance coverage.

It is lazy and mean-spirited to allege that people are committing fraud without evidence to prove it. It’s another example of this administration distracting the public with misinformation instead of focusing on making meaningful improvements to healthcare affordability and access.

This administration previously attempted to blame the sharp drop in enrollment for 2026 individual health plans on fraud rather than naming the real culprit — their own failure to extend enhanced premium tax credits that lowered premiums for people who previously struggled to afford insurance. The resulting price hikes took an immediate toll — in Washington state alone, we saw 40,000 people drop coverage due to unaffordability. Those are real people, not phantom numbers.

That said, we also know there are ongoing fraud issues that the federal marketplace has yet to fully address. If this administration really wants to prevent fraud, it should look to the states for examples of best practices. The president should also stop giving convicted fraudsters a free pass and focus on helping states find ways to make healthcare more affordable.

Patty’s Takes: Trump’s questionable ACA disenrollments aren’t a healthcare fix was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My heart goes out to the families who lost their homes and possessions in the Spokane Complex Fires in early August. The damage from the most devastating fire in state history is significant — 10,000 acres burned, 67,000 people were evacuated and more than 850 buildings were destroyed. The Spokane County Assessor estimated the economic damage at more than $1 billion and our own initial data call tallies insured losses at $772 million.

My office remains committed to helping wildfire survivors through the claims process. We’re hosting in-person wildfire claims workshops on the second Monday of each month in the Spokane area, with video recordings available online afterwards.

In the immediate aftermath, I issued a pair of emergency orders, which were tied to Governor Ferguson’s emergency declaration:

• One allows fire survivors to get a one-time refill or a prescription before the expiration or waiting period and allows a 60-day health insurance premium grace period. It also prohibits insurers from cancelling or nonrenewing policies for non-payment of premiums.
• The other orders a 45-day grace period for home and auto insurance premiums for wildfire survivors.
• In addition, I opened registration for out-of-state adjusters to help expedite the claims process.

I also sent members of our Consumer Outreach and Disaster Response (CODR) program to staff the Disaster Assistance Center at Shadle Park High School as soon as it opened, as well as several town halls in the area. They talked to 300 people on their first day of action and 500 total the first week. I also encouraged insurance companies to send representatives to the DAC to provide immediate help to anyone with questions about their coverage and how to access their additional living expense benefits. Fourteen companies were on hand with their catastrophic event teams to provide direct help to people with questions about their claims and, in some cases, walk away with a check.

As people work through their recovery, we’ll continue to help — while doing what we can to ensure this level of recovery isn’t necessary again. We’re fine-tuning our legislative priorities for the 2027 session and one of our most important bills is the Strengthen Washington Homes program.

This voluntary grant program would help people in the most at-risk areas retrofit their homes to be more defensible against wildfire. It’s based on the Wildfire Prepared Homes designation from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, which is the gold standard for insurance companies. These are research-backed standards that show a company the home is a safer investment.

The bill also specifies that wildfire risk can’t be the sole reason for a policy to be cancelled or nonrenewed if they’ve met the Wildfire Prepared Home standards, which gives people a step to make sure their coverage stays in place.

The Spokane Complex Fires were tragic and traumatic, and highlighted the impacts of climate change and the need for stronger efforts in mitigating wildfire risk. Building back to IBHS standards is the right first step to protect against this level of damage in the future.

Addressing increasing health insurance rates

As I detailed in a blog post earlier this month, my office approved an average 22.2% increase in rates for plans on the individual health insurance market.

The approval wasn’t made hastily. Our actuaries review these rate requests over the course of months and are required to approve rates if they’re justified. And while the rates are justified, the for-profit healthcare system is not.

Three straight years of double-digit increases means significant sticker shock for the hundreds of thousands of people in our state who purchase their health coverage on the exchange. It also means healthier people who are willing to go without insurance are more likely to roll the dice and remove themselves from the insurance pool, meaning those who can’t afford to go without insurance pay more for coverage.

Healthcare is a human right. That was a big part of why I ran for office: to change how we access and pay for healthcare.

I’m committed to fixing the system. The first step is to ensure people can access the routine care they need to stay healthy. I’m developing a proposal to improve access to primary care, which is a move towards revolutionizing how care is delivered in our state. I hope you’ll follow along with our progress and support a new way to keeping ourselves healthy and connected to care.

Podcast updates

I joined our agency podcast, OIC Answers on Insurance, last week to discuss health insurance rates and how our office reviews them. Two members of our actuarial staff joined me to explain the details and nuances of what drives health care costs and our role in the rate review process.

Recent podcast topics also include:

• Reproductive healthcare coverage
• What we learned at the Spokane Disaster Assistance Center
• What goes into an auto insurance policy
• How we review home and auto insurance rates

Claim handling rule takes effect Oct. 18

If you file a claim in Washington, you can expect quicker responses, greater transparency, and more fairness from your insurance company. That’s due to our updated claim handling rule.

The new requirements go into effect on Oct. 18 and update the unfair claims settlement practices that haven’t changed since they were first adopted in 1978. The rule:

• Reinforces that any unfair claims practice can violate state law (RCW 48.30.010) by removing qualifying language on the frequency of the violations.
• Establishes more specific timelines and documentation requirements for communication, investigations, denials, and payments.
• Sets detailed standards for auto damage and total loss claims, including inspection requirements, communication standards, data sources for valuations, and how additional damage must be handled.
• Enhances transparency by requiring insurance companies to explain denials, provide policy references, share valuation reports, and disclose data sources used for the valuation of your vehicle.
• Strengthens your right to access your own claim file and requires your insurance company to explain what may be redacted.

Sometimes people are left without a clear idea of their claim process, and these updates address that with a fair process and more transparency for consumers.

‘Shuffle’ and insurance fraud

I hosted a free screening of Ben Flaherty’s film ‘Shuffle’ in August to highlight the evolving landscape of insurance fraud and our efforts to fight it.

The documentary shows a scheme in which clients are cycled through treatment centers, sometimes to the tune of $1 million a year in fraudulent addiction treatment charges. It was an excellent example of how the system is being abused and how that abuse harms some of our most vulnerable people.

I proposed a law earlier this year to modernize our state’s insurance fraud laws and define insurance fraud as its own crime. Billing an insurance company or consumer for services not provided and impersonating others in insurance-related claims or transactions would also be a crime, among other changes.

A new version of that bill, which increases our ability to fight these fraudulent schemes, will be back on the legislative docket in 2027.

Medicare Open Enrollment coming Oct. 15

If you’re enrolled in Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, your needs, costs and coverage might change from year to year. Medicare Open Enrollment, which runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, is the time to make your coverage changes.

We’ll be sharing more information and tips as open enrollment gets closer but remember to review your coverage and assess your needs. And if you’ve got questions, contact our SHIBA Program for free, unbiased advice about Medicare.

Online ordering for our free Medicare Open Enrollment Toolkit is now live. Order yours today to help you get ready and stay organized for this year’s Open Enrollment.

Patty’s Takes: Recovery continues from Spokane Complex Fires was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My office released the approved 2027 individual market health insurance rates earlier this week. The figure was less than encouraging: a 22.2% average rate increase for the 12 insurers offering plans on the state’s Health Benefit Exchange.

This is an extra burden on hard-working Washington people and families already struggling with higher costs of living, and I share your frustrations with our for-profit healthcare system. Like you, I don’t agree with our current system or see annual double-digit increases in the cost of health insurance as sustainable.

The Insurance Commissioner’s role is to regulate the insurance industry. Part of that work is to review the health insurance companies’ requested rate changes each year and determine if they are actuarily justified.

Rates are the basic unit companies use to determine your annual premiums, combined with details like your age, the size of your enrolled family, where you live and which plan you choose.

We review each rate filing carefully; the process takes several months, going back and forth with the companies’ actuaries. If an insurance company can show its work and detail the assumptions and justifications that led them to request an increase, state law requires that we approve the change. My authority over the rates is limited. Unlike rates for health plans that businesses offer their employees, there is no negotiation in the individual market.

If I were to simply deny any rate changes, health insurers would abandon the state entirely. Fewer options for coverage would drive costs higher and leave people in certain parts of the state without any health insurance options. That’s an even more dire situation for the people buying coverage through the state Exchange — mainly people who don’t get coverage through their job or work for themselves and pre-Medicare age retirees.

As the costs increase, healthier people are also dropping coverage. This is a compounding problem. Health insurance rates are partially based on the insurer’s expectation of how often and to what extent their policyholders will use their benefits. When healthier people who don’t anticipate needing care over the next year leave the market, the expectation for the remaining members’ healthcare needs rises and push rates up with them.

Last year, enrollment in our Exchange plans dropped 13%, to 250,000. It was the biggest drop since 2012 and was caused in large part by the federal government’s failure to maintain the subsidies that helped more people get covered. It’s clear this isn’t sustainable.

The healthcare system, and the consolidation of providers under profit-first corporations, is driving these increases.

Changing that is a large part of why I chose to run for this office. I believe that healthcare is a human right and shouldn’t be accepted as a tool for corporate profits. No one should have to make a financial decision over their own health and wellbeing or that of their family members.

Instead of grappling with higher costs every year, we should be focused on creating a system that works for everyone, and the blueprint already exists. Universal healthcare is the clear answer and installing a system with better outcomes for everyone is one of my top priorities.

I’m committed to fixing the system and taking the profit out of healthcare. None of the changes we all want to see will start without the first step, and that’s ensuring people can access the health care they need to stay healthy through primary care. States have always been the incubators of change, and I believe we have a chance to lead the way.

I’ll be sharing more information on my proposal to start the process for rebuilding how we finance and structure primary care in our state soon, and I hope you’ll get involved to learn more, and support this important work. You can also sign up for email alerts to stay up to date on my primary care proposal.

Patty’s Takes: Increasing health rates and a universal solution was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’ve got health insurance in Washington, most of your reproductive health care expenses are covered.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies must cover all FDA-approved, over-the-counter birth control as a free preventive service. That includes condoms, spermicides, emergency birth control and sponges. Save your receipt for a refund or, if you have a health savings account (HSA) or a flexible spending account (FSA), use your card to make the payment.

Under Washington state law, health plans can’t require you to pay a copay or a deductible for prescription birth control, so your pharmacy should not ask you for any payment when you pick up. Your plan also must cover voluntary sterilization or a vasectomy.

Certain women’s health services are also covered, like breastfeeding supplies, counseling for sexually transmitted infections and mammograms, among other services.

State law also requires:

• Coverage for birth control on your plan’s drug list (also called a formulary) if it uses one for other covered prescriptions.
• Outpatient coverage for all medical services related to giving prescription birth control.
• Accommodations for birth control if you get coverage from certain religious employers.
• Coverage for abortion services if your health plan covers maternity services.
• Coverage for abortion services if you joined or renewed a student health plan that provides maternity care after Jan. 1, 2022.

Ask your health insurance provider for specific details on how to use your reproductive health benefits.

• Learn more about your reproductive health rights
• Learn more about your health care rights in Washington state

What to know about reproductive health care coverage was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re only a month into wildfire season but we’ve already seen a worst-case scenario for people in the Spokane area.

The Upriver Fire destroyed 14 homes — and tragically took one life — while burning around 200 acres over the course of a week. It was one of three active large fires burning at the same time, with the Garred Road Fire at 3,300 acres and the 11,700-acre Kartar Fire near Okanogan. A few days later the 80-acre Hamilton fire prompted a Level 3 evacuation order for Winthrop, though thankfully the order was quickly reduced.

Wildfires, exacerbated by climate change, have become an annual occurrence in Washington. A large part of my outreach this spring was to address the impacts and help people mitigate against potential damage. I attended a wildfire & forestry safety fair in Deer Park, met with community leaders in Cle Elum, and hosted an insurance town hall in Medical Lake with Mayor Terri Cooper, with more events scheduled this summer. (Check out our Community Connect page to learn more or invite me to an event.)

I’m taking two legislative approaches to address the home insurance nonrenewals and cancellations due to wildfires: Risk score transparency and mitigation. These two strong consumer protection bills unfortunately died in the House Consumer Protection & Committee last March, but will be reintroduced in the 2027 Legislative session.

The first, SB 5928, focused on wildfire risk score transparency and would require insurers to provide policyholders with information about their wildfire risk score when they’re non-renewed or cancelled due to wildfire risk. Wildfire risk was the top reason people joined our state’s FAIR plan in 2025, and transparency is a key piece to better understanding how insurers are evaluating wildfire risk.

The other bill, SB 6079, would create a pilot grant program, Strengthen Washington Homes, to help homeowners pay to retrofit their homes to harden them against wildfire. The voluntary program would use Insurance Industry for Business & Home Safety standards for wildfire protection, which are proven to increase insurability and reduce the risk of a home igniting. Under this bill, consumers who invest in these standards would be protected from non-renewals or cancellations due to wildfire risk.

IBHS’ Wildfire Prepared Home standards are now available in Washington and we’re already seeing homes built to those standards in Kittitas County. I’m hopeful we can get the Strengthen Washington Homes program established in Washington to make those improvements more accessible for everyone in our most fire-prone areas.

Subscribe here for updates on all our wildfire risk mitigation efforts.

Ingrid Ulery joins the OIC

Ingrid Ulery, who served as the CEO of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange for three years, has joined our staff as my Senior Health Policy Advisor. She brings decades of experience in health policy and I’m glad to have her insight on health care affordability, consumer protection, and expanding access to care. She’ll serve as my delegate on the Health Care Cost Transparency Board and the Universal Health Care Commission.

Ingrid is taking over for Jane Beyer, who retired in May and had a hand in almost every major piece of health policy legislation in Washington over the last 40 years.

WHRC webinar coming July 8

Join me for a live virtual conversation on home insurance, consumer protection, disaster resilience and housing affordability at noon on July 8, hosted by the Washington Homeownership Resource Center. This webinar is a continuation of the Washington State Affordable Homeownership Forum and you can register here.

ICYMI: OIC Answers

Our agency podcast has shifted out of On Campus mode and back to expert-driven insurance topics. This spring our hosts covered mental health parity enforcement and title insurance, with two new episodes scheduled for July on the rate review process and our wildfire mitigation partnerships.

Affordability, not fraud, to blame for lower ACA Exchange enrollments

The federal government has released a report on enrollment in Affordable Care Act Exchanges, calling nearly half of the increased enrollments from 2021 to 2024 “fraudulent” and claiming its efforts stopped 2.9 million people from receiving healthcare subsidies.

This report, however, hides behind accusations of fraud to avoid addressing the obvious takeaway from the data, which is that fewer people are enrolling in Exchange plans due to the rising costs. The Trump administration failed to extend the enhanced Premium Tax Credits last year despite bipartisan calls to preserve subsidies that millions of Americans relied on to afford healthcare.

In Washington, our state-based Exchange has robust fraud controls in place, and those additional federal subsidies were part of why we reached a historically low uninsured rate of 4.8% here. Despite our state’s mitigation efforts, we still saw almost 40,000 Washingtonians leave the individual market this year because of affordability.

My office is currently reviewing proposed rate changes for plans on the 2027 individual health insurance market. Thirteen insurers have proposed an average 22.4% increase, which makes it clear that affordability — not fraud — is the impetus behind lower enrollment. My office is carefully reviewing those filings, but if the proposed rates are actuarily justified, we must approve them. What it shows is that our current system is not sustainable — we need to move in a different direction. We’ll continue our work to reduce the cost of healthcare and keep Washingtonians covered.

A.I. causing Medicare authorization delays

We’ve heard from seniors who have faced delays in accessing care due to the new pilot program, WISeR, which uses artificial intelligence in prior authorization decisions for Original Medicare. I’m glad to see that the Federal government is finally recognizing that these delays in care for Washington seniors are unacceptable. However, I still have serious concerns about the program’s design.

The program was intended to root out fraud and waste in certain services, but it’s only been a distraction from real fraud. The pilot program incentivizes denials of medically necessary procedures by paying the company in charge of the WISeR program based on the amount of money it “saves” Medicare. I support the efforts from our Congressional delegation to end this program altogether and to work with states to make meaningful improvements to Medicare for our seniors.

Modernizing our efforts to combat insurance fraud

Insurance fraud costs insurance companies more than $300 billion a year, which is passed along to consumers in the form of higher premiums. My office proposed a bill in 2026 to modernize how we fight insurance fraud, which costs the average family $900 a year in increased premiums.

That bill passed the Senate unanimously but didn’t make it out of the House Consumer Protection & Business committee. Like other OIC-request consumer protection bills, this one will be reintroduced next year.

We’ve seen an increase in identity-based and technology-assisted fraud schemes over the past few years, and this bill would better equip our Criminal Investigations Unit to fight that fraud — which easier to commit at a large scale than individual schemes and costs consumers more money in the long run.

In the meantime, I’m happy to report the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office filed its first insurance fraud charges under our new interagency agreement, which was approved by the Legislature during the 2025 session. To learn more about protecting yourself from insurance fraud, please visit our website at www.insurance.wa.gov.

Patty’s Takes: Wildfire season and what we’re doing to address it was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wildfires have become a more frequent annual occurrence in Washington, and Wildfire Awareness Month — held each May — is a great time to learn more about keeping your home as safe as possible.

Gov. Bob Ferguson issued an official proclamation on May 1 to recognize the importance of fire preparation.

The annual effort to help people understand the risk of wildfire starts with Wildfire Community Preparedness Day, which the National Fire Protection Association organizes to put a spotlight on community preparedness events. You can check out the NFPA’s interactive map to find out what’s going on in your area.

Wildfire and your insurance

The number of Washington homeowners who have had their policies nonrenewed or cancelled has doubled since 2021, with wildfire risk becoming one of the most common explanations.

Commissioner Patty Kuderer has been working to address two specific aspects of the issue since taking office: wildfire risk score transparency and wildfire mitigation.

She sponsored two pieces of legislation to address these issues that stalled in the House of Representatives in the 2026 session — a bill to create a pilot version of the Strengthen Washington Homes grant program and another to increase transparency around wildfire risk scores. They were both based on recommendations from the Wildfire mitigation and resiliency standards work group.

Risk score transparency covers the third-party data insurance companies use to evaluate your property’s exposure to wildfires and determine eligibility for coverage, pricing and renewals. Those risk scores are a major factor in whether you can keep your insurance, but insurance companies aren’t required to share them with you or the OIC — which makes understanding and improving your risk score difficult.

On Campus: Sen. Shelly Short and two bills addressing wildfire threats

The Strengthen Washington Homes program would have funded wildfire mitigation measures based on the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety’s standards. Those standards are now available in Washington and homeowners can earn a Wildfire Prepared Home designation to improve their home’s resiliency and insurability.

What you can do

• Make sure you’ve got enough coverage. One of the trends revealed after the Gray and Oregon Road fires in 2023 was that most homeowners were underinsured. Two-thirds of the claims paid out their policy maximum, which signals that coverage limits were reached and the loss was greater than the insured amount. Check with your insurance agent every year to make sure you’ve got enough coverage to rebuild your home and enough additional living expense coverage, which provides funds for temporary housing for a set period of time while your home is being repaired. This coverage needs to be at least available to provide funds for 2 years after the wildfire.
• Understand what your insurance policy covers and keep an itemized list of everything in your home. It sounds daunting, but it will be a benefit to get the work done early and update it regularly so you can be protected in a worst-case scenario. Take pictures of your items and store inventory pictures digitally or in a fire-proof place.
• Sign up for alerts from local governments and fire districts to keep up on fires, evacuation notices and local shelter locations. Don’t wait to leave if there is a wildfire approaching your location.
• Attend one of Commissioner Kuderer’s Community Connect events this summer to learn more about wildfire risk, wildfire mitigation opportunities, and our work to address the availability and affordability of home insurance in wildfire-threatened areas.
• Stay up to date on the OIC’s work by joining our wildfire mitigation email list.

Fire safety from DNR

As part of Wildfire Awareness Month, the Department of Natural Resources is sharing an informational wildfire video series on its social media pages and has plenty of programs available, including:

• Community Wildfire Defense Grants
• Community Wildfire Protection Plans
• Wildfire Ready Neighbors
• An interactive fire and outdoor burning map

Learning about your fire risk during Wildfire Awareness Month was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A new state law went into effect on January 1, 2026 that requires health plans covering prescription hormone therapy to reimburse enrollees for a 12-month supply obtained at one time.

The law defines “prescription hormone therapy” as all drugs approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration used to medically suppress, increase, or replace hormones that the body is not producing at intended levels.

The law only applies to prescription hormone therapy that can be safely stored at room temperature. It doesn’t apply if:

• You request a smaller supply.
• The provider instructs that you must have a smaller supply.
• Your prescription hormone therapy is a controlled substance.
• Your health plan limits refills that can be obtained in the last quarter of a plan year when a 12-month supply has already been dispensed during that plan year.
• Your prescribing provider temporarily limits refills to a 90-day supply due to an acute dispensing shortage during the plan year.

While health plans must cover a 12-month supply, your provider may write a prescription differently. For example, they might write a one-month prescription with 11 refills, or a 90-day prescription with three refills. A pharmacy could also only have a limited supply of hormone therapy. Check with your provider and pharmacy to confirm they will prescribe, and dispense, a 12-month supply.

The law only applies to state-regulated health plans. It does not apply to employer-sponsored self-funded plans, short-term limited-purpose insurance (like student-only plans), Medicare supplement plans, or any other non-state-regulated plans.

If you’ve got coverage through your employer, your human resources office can tell you if the new law applies to you.

If you have concerns that your health plan is not covering prescription hormone therapy as required, you can file a complaint with the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.

What to know about new rules for prescription hormone therapy was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown notched a significant win on Monday.

Leading a coalition of 22 states, Brown secured a federal court order permanently blocking the Trump administration from declaring certain forms of gender-affirming care as unsafe and ineffective, and from directing federal insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid from excluding coverage for that treatment.

That move prompted providers, like Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, to close down its gender clinic, depriving trans youth of even less options for care. Mary Bridge’s closure meant 320 young people, including 180 under 18, were without a gender-affirming medical health care provider.

The win was an important sign of support for transgender youth and their families, who have been under constant assault from the Trump administration — from having their medical records subpoenaed to health care disruptions.

You can read all about Brown’s victory here.

The rebuke from U.S. District Court Judge Mustafa Kasubhai was impressive and scathing, calling out Secretary Robert Kennedy’s cruelty and disregard for the law:

“Secretary Kennedy’s utter failure to promulgate rules in accordance with statutory authority, but instead threaten to cease federal funding to medical providers almost immediately after the declaration, caused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation. Secretary Kennedy’s unlawful declaration harmed children. This case illustrates that when a leader acts without authority and in the absence of the rule of law, he acts with cruelty.”

The Trump administration does not have the power to supersede the rule of law, no matter how loud, declarative and authoritarian its methods may be.

“This is a resounding win for the rights of youth, their families, and the rule of law when it comes to medical care,” Brown said last month, when the court announced its decision. “The court agrees that the administration ignored the law in its rush to deprive transgender youth of the health care they are legally entitled to.”

Gender-affirming care is safe and effective, and everyone deserves the right to health care. I’m proud of AG Brown’s hard work on this case and proud to be part of a state leading the way in fighting back against an unjust presidential administration.

Patty’s Takes: Court made the right call in protecting youth gender-affirming care was originally published in Commissioner’s Eye on Insurance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.