OLYMPIA, Wash. – A bill to define insurance fraud as a Class B felony passed the Washington Senate in a unanimous vote on Tuesday.
The bill, SB 6031, was requested by Washington’s Office of the Insurance Commissioner and was introduced towards the beginning of the 2026 legislative session.
It adapts several parts of the law to update insurance fraud identification, which in turn allows the insurance commissioner to better prosecute insurance fraudsters.
“House Bill 2394 [the companion bill to SB 6031] won’t put any additional strain on taxpayer funds and opens the door for strong enforcement of our state laws so that Washington’s insurance consumers don’t pay higher premiums to subsidize crime. It’s the right change, at the right time, to fight insurance fraud,” Washington insurance commissioner Patty Kuderer wrote in a post about the bill.
The bill updates language that was established in 2006 that has not been updated since.
“Defining the most serious acts that defraud insurance companies and consumers as the crime of insurance fraud helps us hold the most egregious actors accountable,” Kuderer said. “This approach shifts CIU’s focus away from simple scams — like crashing a car and then buying a policy — to more complicated schemes, like exploiting loopholes to steal large amounts of money in smaller denominations to avoid prosecution.”
The Office of the Insurance Commissioner reported that insurance fraud costs companies $300 billion a year, which leads to higher premiums for consumers.
Next, the bill will move to the House of Representatives.
