2026-09-10 · Indiana · Regulation

What happened. The Indiana Department of Insurance issued Bulletin 280 on 17 August 2026, directing insurers to hold off on cancelling policies belonging to Hoosiers caught in the storms that began on 11 August. It is signed by Insurance Commissioner Holly W. Lambert.¹

The operative sentence directs:

“A 60-day moratorium for cancellation of any insurance policy in effect for any policyholder directly affected by the Disaster Events residing within the State of Indiana, and a suspension of any penalty attached to the late payment therein.”

The dates, precisely

These are easy to get wrong, and the bulletin's own framing differs from how it has been summarised elsewhere.

• The storms began 11 August 2026 and continued through 16 August.
• Executive Order 26-21, declaring a statewide disaster emergency, was issued by Governor Braun on 13 August — two days into the event, not on its first day.
• The moratorium takes effect on the date the bulletin issued, 17 August: “This moratorium will take effect on the date of issuance of this Bulletin.”
• Insurers are expected to apply it retroactively to 10 August — the bulletin asks them to reach back to “the day before the Disaster Events occurred,” which is 10 August, not 11 August.
• Sixty days from issuance runs to roughly 16 October 2026.

Scope is statewide, not limited to declared counties — the test in the bulletin is whether a policyholder was “directly affected,” and where they reside is Indiana generally.

The storm behind it

Indiana Homeland Security describes the 11 August system as “a thunderstorm system, preliminarily classified by the Storm Prediction Center as a derecho,” which “produced extreme straight-line winds, at least two tornadoes, large hail and flash flooding.” At its peak Indiana had “more than 300,000 power outages.”³

A federal major disaster declaration, DR-4933-IN, followed on 25 August. Individual Assistance covers 21 counties: Carroll, Dearborn, Decatur, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Hamilton, Hancock, Henry, Lake, LaPorte, Madison, Marion, Morgan, Porter, Pulaski, Randolph, Rush, Tipton, Union and Wayne. Public Assistance — which reaches local governments and certain private nonprofit organisations — covers eleven of those: Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Hamilton, Henry, Lake, LaPorte, Madison, Porter, Tipton and Wayne.⁴

1. Indiana Dep't of Insurance, Bulletin 280, “Policy Cancellation Moratorium” (Aug. 17, 2026) ↩
2. Executive Order 26-21, declaring a statewide disaster emergency (Aug. 13, 2026) ↩
3. Indiana Dep't of Homeland Security, “August 2026 Disaster” (storm classification, outage and assistance figures) ↩
4. FEMA Release HQ-26-115, major disaster declaration DR-4933-IN (Aug. 25, 2026) ↩