Idaho Legislature considers Spanish-language insurance bill

The House Business Committee Wednesday put a temporary hold on a bill that would allow insurance companies to advertise their policies in foreign languages but print the insurance contracts in English. Under current Idaho law, insurance companies are not required to print brochures or other advertising materials in Spanish or other languages, but if they decide to do so they must have policies written in those languages.

  Nuances and shades of meaning can sometimes get lost in translation, said attorney Allyn Dingel, who spoke in favor of the bill. Having the policies in English would make sure insurance companies aren’t penalized for that. “I’m not an English-only person, but something has got to control,” he said.

  But Clinton Minor of the Idaho Trial Lawyers Association argued that the bill could erode consumers’ rights, particularly those of Hispanic consumers. The Idaho Supreme Court held in Walston vs. Monumental Life Insurance Co. that the description of an insurance product in an insurer’s brochure is just as legally binding as the policy contract, Minor said. If the brochure differs from the policy contract, the two documents are combined into one policy and the document that promised the greater amount of coverage is the one that is binding.

  After that Supreme Court decision, Minor said, it became easier for consumers to make sure they got the coverage they paid for. They don’t have to file a truth in advertising lawsuit any more, he said. All they have to do is take out the brochure.

  But a sentence in the proposed bill states, “Advertisement regarding an insurance policy in languages other than English may not be construed to modify the policy in the event of a dispute over the provisions of the policy.” That sentence seems to roll back consumer protections for people who speak other languages, Minor said.

  Dingel said that statement wouldn’t give insurers a free pass if they include blatant misrepresentations about coverage in a Spanish-language brochure, since existing laws deal with that. “Misrepresentation is misrepresentation,” he said.

  Rep. Branden Durst, D-Boise, questioned the point of including that sentence if that’s the case.  Dingel said the language was needed to keep cases based on nuances of translation and interpretation out of the courts.

  Minor said it shouldn’t be needed. He is bilingual, and about a third of his clients speak Spanish. He said it isn’t difficult to create a brochure that isn’t misleading and doesn’t leave matters open to interpretation.

  The committee voted to take up the matter on Friday, hoping by that time to get an opinion on the matter from the attorney general.