Kansas insurance commissioner details efficiency gains, consumer recoveries and legislative requests

Kansas Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt updated the Senate Committee on Government Efficiency on the Kansas Department of Insurance’s efforts to streamline operations, recover consumer dollars and seek statutory changes to speed complaint handling.

Schmidt told the committee she has led the department since 2019 and that its consumer-assistance work has put money back into Kansans’ pockets. "I am a firm believer... people deserve answers to their questions," she said, adding that the department has increased recoveries and is expanding consumer outreach and public education programs.

The commissioner said efficiencies at the department — from posting rate data online to overhauling licensing and switching some communications from postal mail to email — have reduced the cost of doing business in Kansas, which she quantified as about $75,000,000 in combined savings from the measures listed in her testimony. She said the department is fully fee-funded with a healthy ending balance driven in part by large lawsuit settlements…