Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, American Insurance Association, and National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies v. Texas Department of Insurance and Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas

Summary

The Texas Court of Appeals for the Seventh District affirmed a trial court judgment concerning whether correspondence and attachments held by the Texas Department of Insurance were confidential under former Insurance Code article 21.49-2U and therefore exempt from disclosure under the Public Information Act. The court held that the statutory identity-protection requirement applied only to information presented in the required credit-scoring report, not to information obtained by the Department in preparing that report. The court also upheld the denial of declaratory relief and attorney’s fees to the insurer associations.

Holdings

1. The identity protection required by former article 21.49-2U section 15(b) extends only to information presented in the required credit-scoring report, not to information obtained or held by the Department of Insurance in preparing that report. Accordingly, the correspondence and attachments, with names and addresses redacted, were not exempt from disclosure under Texas Government Code section 552.101.
2. The associations were not entitled to relief under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act or to attorney's fees because the dispute was an ordinary challenge concerning whether information was excepted from disclosure under the Public Information Act, and the Attorney General acted within his statutory role in interpreting the Insurance Code provision.

Questions Presented

1. Whether former Insurance Code article 21.49-2U section 15(b) made the Department of Insurance's correspondence and attachments confidential and exempt from disclosure under Texas Government Code section 552.101.
2. Whether the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act provided a proper basis for reviewing the Attorney General's open-records ruling and authorized an award of attorney's fees.

Disposition

affirmed