Oklahoma is facing one of the most intense insurance crises in the country. Policyholders are struggling with extremely high homeowners insurance premiums, unfair delays and low-balling of claims by insurance companies, and an Insurance Department that has spent years giving insurers the benefit of the doubt at consumers’ expense. The consequences are not abstract—Oklahoma homeowners find it difficult to pay for coverage and, when they need their insurance company the most, they are offered claim payments that are not enough to rebuild their homes and lives. In order to ease this crisis, Oklahoma insurance regulators need to crack down on insurance company abuses and stand up for consumers by rejecting excessive rate increases. 

How did we get to this point? Over the past few years, Oklahoma’s homeowners insurance costs have increased dramatically. A 2025 New York Times analysis found that Oklahoma is the sixth-most expensive state for homeowners, and “along the edges of Oklahoma, the premium paid by the typical household last year was as much as 70 percent higher than in adjacent counties in Texas, Arkansas and Kansas.” Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready never used his authority to deny any rate increases; instead, he claimed that Oklahoma has a “vibrant free market” and that insurers are making low profits. At a time when consumers needed strong reviews of insurance companies’ demands for higher rates, they were simply told to trust the market.

On the other end of the insurance experience – the part where insurers are supposed to send money back to policyholders whose homes have been damaged or destroyed -- some of the largest insurers unfairly delayed claims and low-balled the payments that consumers received, according to two lawsuits brought by the Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. The suits, one filed against Allstate and the other against State Farm, allege that the companies coordinated schemes to systematically underpay or deny legitimate storm-damage claims. State Farm, for example, had an internal program called the “Hail Focus Initiative,” designed to reduce roof payments in Oklahoma to meet savings targets. Plus, State Farm stripped its field adjusters of authority to approve full roof replacements and pressured its employees and partners to falsely attribute damage from hail and windstorms to “wear and tear” or “installation error”, so it would not have to make payments. Allstate is accused of similar abuses—the company markets its policies as providing full coverage but internally applies standards that reduce and delay payments. 

As with his hands-off approach to excessive rates charged Oklahomans, Commissioner Mulready did nothing to uncover or counter these claims handling problems in the Oklahoma insurance market. In response to criticism, Mulready promised to release an investigative report into insurance companies’ claim handling practices by early 2026. As of August 2026, that report and its findings have still not been released. 

The Oklahoma Legislature responded to this crisis by approving House Bill 3781, which passed in May 2026 and changes Oklahoma’s insurance regulatory system from a “use and file” system to a “file and wait” system, as bill proponents refer to it. Under these new rules, insurers must submit proposed increases to the Oklahoma Insurance Department before they can take effect, with all filings publicly posted on the OID website. The Commissioner is required to review and approve insurance rates before they can take effect, and to make sure the rates are not unreasonably high, unfairly discriminatory, or actuarially unsupported. While this law is an encouraging step, it doesn’t come into force until July 1st, 2027, and it will mean little without active enforcement from regulators. 

Oklahoma’s crisis illustrates what happens when insurance regulators fail to protect consumers and keep insurance affordable. Mulready’s inaction made conventional oversight ineffective, leaving the Attorney General’s office to fill the gap through litigation—which means consumers might only get protected after the damage has been done rather than protected from it, as sound regulation could have provided.

Mulready is leaving office and in November, voters will elect a new insurance commissioner. Oklahomans have an opportunity to demand more from the government office that is supposed to protect them when they buy insurance products, as they are required to do. The current situation didn’t emerge overnight, and it won’t be resolved quickly, but the new Insurance Commissioner should commit to policies that prioritize consumer protections. 

The next Commissioner should carefully scrutinize homeowners insurance rate increases demanded by insurance companies. Rather than bow to company demands for rate hikes, the Commissioner should insist that the insurers justify their rates and demonstrate they are not excessive. And the Commissioner should require companies to lower rates when they are excessive. 

The Commissioner should also direct the Oklahoma Insurance Department to investigate complaints and allegations concerning low-ball claim offers, unfair delays in claim payments, and other ways in which insurers have cheated policyholders in the claims process. The Commissioner should be willing to open enforcement actions and impose penalties upon the companies for misbehavior. The Department should also fully cooperate with the Attorney General’s current lawsuits against Allstate and State Farm, to help with gathering evidence and in other areas. 

Over the next year, Oklahoma has a chance to promote durable insurance reforms. We urge those vying to become the next Insurance Commissioner to seize this moment and help ordinary homeowners get affordable coverage, fair treatment, and the full claim payments they are owed.