Insurance commissioner gives final update, highlights recoveries, fraud work and 2026 legislative agenda

Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt told the Committee on Insurance on the opening day of the session that this would be her last formal update to the panel and summarized the Department of Insurance's recent work and 2026 legislative priorities. "Since I have been insurance commissioner, we have recovered $202,700,000 and returned that back to Kansas families," Schmidt said.

Schmidt said 2025 was a record year for recoveries, with $56,700,000 returned so far, and she credited the department's Consumer Assistance Division for the results. "I am the most proud of this work because this really does provide a direct impact to Kansas families," she said.

The commissioner outlined several operational and policy items the department will pursue this session. She described fee-reduction actions taken since 2023, including elimination of a 1% premium tax retention, and said those steps amount to a $96,500,000 reduction in the cost of doing business in Kansas. Schmidt also reported the department selected a vendor for the state's real-time insurance verification system and expressed confidence it will meet a July 1 deployment target intended to reduce costs tied to uninsured motorists.

On consumer protection and anti-fraud efforts, Schmidt highlighted the department's work implementing the state's law to protect vulnerable adults from financial exploitation, noting the law allowed brokers and investment advisers to delay suspicious disbursements and report them to the department. "That has allowed us to protect and prevent $4,970,000 from going to fraudsters," she said. John Eichorn, the department's director of compliance, enforcement and anti-fraud, explained that the prevented funds were held by broker-dealers or investment advisers under the statute while the department opened cases and coordinated with Adult Protective Services.

Eric Turk, the department's director of government affairs, reviewed the department's legislative agenda for the coming week. Items he described include an insurance savings account proposal modeled on prior state savings-account programs; anti-fraud enhancements (building on last session's House Bill 2323); a concurrent resolution urging Congress to permit state regulation of Medicare Advantage; mammogram affordability legislation to extend no-cost diagnostic imaging more broadly; additional fee-lowering authority; and a technical fix to licensing response-time language from last year's Senate Bill 42 conference process. Turk said the department expects to introduce several of those measures in the coming week.

Lawmakers asked detailed questions about how the proposed insurance savings accounts would operate and whether other states have adopted the concept. Turk said the department modeled the accounts on prior Kansas savings-account programs and that the proposal is a state-level tax treatment rather than a federal health-savings-account product.

On prior authorization in health coverage, Schmidt acknowledged the process is "definitely broken," said the department has pursued options with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and described an internal medical-review process for denied PAs, and said she expects to pursue legislative changes after gathering additional background from other states.

Schmidt closed by introducing key staff members in the committee's packet and thanking committee members and staff for their work preparing bills this session. The committee did not take formal votes on the department's legislative package during the meeting; the department indicated some bills would be formally filed in committee the following Monday.