What did pass instead, and when it bites

The legislature was not inactive on insurance rates — it simply chose a narrower instrument. House Bill 3781, signed May 12, 2026, moves Oklahoma property and casualty rates from use-and-file to file-and-wait: filings must land thirty days before the rate takes effect, sixty days where the insurer is under closer supervision or the market is found noncompetitive. Kirt is a Senate author on it.

It takes effect July 1, 2027. Every rate increase Oklahoma sees this year and for most of next year comes through under the old regime.

What HB 3781 does not do is what SB 1438 and SB 1435 would have: no profit cap, no refund mechanism, no restriction on credit-based rating.

The Department's own package, also mostly unenacted

On December 10, 2025 Commissioner Glen Mulready announced a seventeen-item legislative package with Rep. Mark Tedford (R-Tulsa) and Sen. Aaron Reinhardt (R-Jenks). The items that reach associations and unit owners directly:³

A statutory Homeowner Bill of Rights. Mandatory FORTIFIED roof discounts. A ban on denying coverage solely on aerial imagery. A restriction on non-renewal because a roof is fifteen years or older. A right to an independent roof inspection to appeal a determination. Clarified building-code, or ordinance-or-law, coverage. Quarterly property-casualty market stability reports. Mandatory mediation for residential claims. And compressed claim clocks — acknowledgment from 30 days to 14, decision from 60 to 30, final resolution from 120 to 90, with 10% interest on late payment.

Mulready: “Oklahomans deserve an insurance market that is transparent, responsive, and accountable.” Tedford: “While we can't control severe weather or the rising cost of building materials, strengthening property resiliency, pursuing tort reform, and closing administrative loopholes in current law are the right steps forward.”

Almost none of it was enacted. It is the most detailed available preview of what a 2027 Oklahoma insurance bill might contain.

Why the claim clocks in that package matter more than they sound

Because the administrative ones are gone. The Insurance Department's claims-handling standards at OAC 365:15-3 — including the accept-or-deny requirement at 365:15-3-7 — were revoked effective September 1, 2023 and never replaced. What survives is 36 O.S. § 1250.5, which does not carry the same self-executing deadlines.

So an association being slow-walked on a hail claim in 2026 has a materially weaker administrative hook than one in 2022 did, and the Commissioner's proposal to put compressed clocks back into statute is a response to a hole that already exists.

What a session of failed bills means for an Oklahoma board

No rate relief is coming from the legislature in time to matter to your next renewal. Plan the renewal, not the reform.

The levers that exist are contractual and procedural. Remarket early. Negotiate the non-renewal notice period, because the rule's floor for a commercial master policy is short. Fix the per-unit deductible arithmetic against the $50,000 secondary-market ceiling. Fund the depreciation gap on an actual-cash-value roof in reserves rather than discovering it after the storm.

Use the fee statute where a claim is wrongly denied. 36 O.S. § 3629(B) shifts fees to the prevailing party, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court held in Rowan v. State Farm, 2025 OK 5, that a written proof of loss is not a precondition to recovering them.

What to watch next

Interim Study 26-037, “Home Insurance Rates,” requested by Rep. Stacy Jo Adams (R-Duncan) — a working insurance agent and the House author of HB 3781 — with Rep. Chris Sneed (R-Fort Gibson), before the House Insurance Committee. Adams: “We are approaching this study without a predetermined conclusion. Some factors may be outside Oklahoma's control, while others may present opportunities for reform.”⁴ All 2026 interim studies must conclude by October 30, and the bill request deadline is December 4.