By Victoria Wicks
The insurance fraud protection unit was transferred from the state insurance division to the Attorney General in 2011. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave a do-pass recommendation to a bill that allows the attorney general access to insurance division records without first getting a subpoena.
Attorney General Marty Jackley says the bill allows access to insurance companies’ records, but medical records or other private information has a layer of protection.
“The way it worked before is, because the insurance division had the insurance fraud unit, they were able to just look at their records to see whether or not an agent was claiming to provide insurance and never did,” Jackley says. “And so what this statute does is say the Attorney General gets access to those same records. I think if you’re going to go in deeper and seek any other type of records, particularly the records where there’s a further privacy right, the subpoena route— either a court subpoena or grand jury subpoena— would be the more logical route to go, given that privacy interest.”
Jackley says Medicaid fraud is investigated in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney and isn’t part of this bill. He says the insurance fraud division was created in 1999 and has in the past been located in the Department of Labor and the Department of Revenue. He says the division is funded by insurance agencies, not by the general fund.