There were some good changes in current law which were enacted in this Legislative session.
1. The Legislature put some teeth into the law on charging consumers a fee to process payments made with debit/credit cards. Before the session, state law (Texas Finance Code 339.001) only allowed government agencies to add a payment processing fee to payments made with a credit/debit card. Everyone else is prohibited from charging a payment processing fee, however, many companies have been imposing these fees since there was no penalty in the law for doing so. Now there is a $500 fine per occurrence.
2. Prior to this session, some home and auto insurance companies exploited a loophole in Texas law and raised their customer's insurance premiums for merely inquiring if they had coverage (not actually filing a claim) for an event. After this session, home and auto insurance companies in Texas can no longer raise a customer's rates for asking questions about their policies.
http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/consumer-wins/
1. The Legislature put some teeth into the law on charging consumers a fee to process payments made with debit/credit cards. Before the session, state law (Texas Finance Code 339.001) only allowed government agencies to add a payment processing fee to payments made with a credit/debit card. Everyone else is prohibited from charging a payment processing fee, however, many companies have been imposing these fees since there was no penalty in the law for doing so. Now there is a $500 fine per occurrence.
2. Prior to this session, some home and auto insurance companies exploited a loophole in Texas law and raised their customer's insurance premiums for merely inquiring if they had coverage (not actually filing a claim) for an event. After this session, home and auto insurance companies in Texas can no longer raise a customer's rates for asking questions about their policies.
http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/consumer-wins/
