As one response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state insurance
regulators including, inter alia, the insurance
departments for California, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania,
have issued bulletins regarding the cancellation of insurance
policies for non-payment of premium. Generally such guidance
encourages insurance companies to refrain from cancelling insurance
policies for reason of non-payment of premium and/or to extend the
applicable grace period for the payment of overdue premium.
However, the states have differed in their approaches on this issue
in certain key respects.
Differing approaches
The majority of state insurance regulators have chosen only to
request that insurers refrain from cancelling insurance policies
for non-payment of premium or otherwise extend grace periods for
the payment of overdue premium. However, certain states such as
Arkansas, Georgia, Oregon and Washington have framed their
respective bulletins as directives or emergency orders
