Four Credentials, Three Chapters, One Gateway
Connecticut licenses adjuster work through four separate credentials, and they do not live together. The casualty claims adjuster is created by § 38a-792 in chapter 702, Part VI. The motor vehicle physical damage appraiser is § 38a-790, Part V of the same chapter. The public adjuster is § 38a-788, Part IV. And the catastrophe adjuster is not a license at all — it is a registration the Department opens on a storm-by-storm basis.
All of them run through one gateway. § 38a-769 is the common application and examination section, and it names them together: any person *"desiring to act within this state as a public adjuster, casualty adjuster, motor vehicle physical damage appraiser, certified insurance consultant, surplus lines broker"* applies under it. Insurance producers are expressly carved out — they have their own track. The fee schedule for all of them is § 38a-11.
⚠️ Chapter 701b is captioned "Public Adjusters" and it does not license anybody. It contains four operative sections — § 38a-723 (definition), § 38a-724 (employment contract), § 38a-725 (penalty) and § 38a-726 (fees charged) — and §§ 38a-727 through 38a-730 are reserved for future use. The licensing and examination provision sits in a different chapter entirely. Any source that cites chapter 701b for what a public adjuster must do to get licensed is citing the wrong chapter, and this is a common error because the caption is so inviting.
The casualty adjuster is defined by what it excludes. The Department describes the license as covering any person who acts as an adjuster of insurance claims *"other than life, accident and health, and fire."* That exclusion is not cosmetic — it is carried in the regulations, and it is the opposite of what most national material assumes.
Two penalty tiers, and they differ. Violating the casualty adjuster licensing section draws a fine of not more than $2,000 or imprisonment of not more than one year, or both, under § 38a-792(c). The appraiser section carries $2,500 on the same structure. The numbers are close enough to be a distractor pair and far enough apart to be wrong if you guess.
Fire Adjusters and Life Adjusters Need No License
⚠️ Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 38a-792-2 is captioned "Adjusters not required to be licensed," and here it is in full: *"No fire insurance adjuster need be licensed. No life insurance adjuster need be licensed."* Two sentences. That is the entire section.
This inverts the national assumption. In most states the fire and property adjuster is the paradigm case of who must be licensed. In Connecticut the license is a casualty license, and the Department describes it as reaching claims *"other than life, accident and health, and fire."*
There is a real tension here and it is worth knowing rather than papering over. The companion regulation, § 38a-792-1(4), requires a license for adjusting *"property damage, including automobile collision."* Read together, the fire exemption and the property-damage requirement meet somewhere that neither section marks. The exemption text is unambiguous on its face; exactly how the Department administers the boundary between a fire loss and a property-damage loss is not written down in either section.
Two statutory exemptions sit in § 38a-792(d) itself. The first covers individuals handling portable electronics insurance claims as defined in § 38a-397 — collecting or furnishing claim information and doing data entry — and it is capped at twenty-five individuals supervised by a licensed adjuster or producer. The second exempts members of the Connecticut bar in good standing engaged in the general practice of law.
The public adjuster definition carries its own carve-out. § 38a-723 provides that *"Lawyers settling claims of clients shall not be deemed to be public adjusters."*
The Only Credential With Prelicensing — and No Bond
§ 38a-723 defines the public adjuster as one who, for compensation, prepares, documents or submits a first-party property claim on behalf of an insured, or negotiates, adjusts or settles such claims, or advertises or holds out as doing so.
⚠️ Forty hours of prelicensing, and the timing clause is the tested part. § 38a-788: *"Each applicant for a public adjuster's license shall, before being admitted to such examination, prove to the satisfaction of the commissioner that he has successfully completed a course approved by the commissioner requiring not less than forty hours covering property insurance policies and forms."* The condition attaches to sitting the exam, not to filing the application. Pearson enforces it independently and applies it to retake candidates as well as first-timers.
⚠️ No bond — and the proof is inside the same chapter. Neither § 38a-788 nor anything in chapter 701b imposes a bond on a public adjuster. The contrast case sits a few sections away: § 38a-795 is captioned "Bond of applicant" and applies to surplus lines brokers. The legislature knew how to require a bond in chapter 702 and did it for exactly one credential. Most states bond public adjusters; Connecticut does not.
The written contract is mandatory, and the cancellation clause has a weekend rule. Under § 38a-724, contracts signed after July 1, 2019 must carry a cancellation provision in at least 12-point boldface type on the first page. The insured may cancel by certified mail, return receipt requested, posted not later than midnight of the fourth calendar day after signing — *except that if the signing falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the cancellation must be posted not later than midnight of the immediately following Thursday.* A contract that omits the provision is void from inception.
No solicitation between 8:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m., and a contract resulting from an off-hours solicitation is void.
⚠️ The fee cap is in the regulation, not the statute. § 38a-726 contains no percentage. The 10% cap lives in Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 38a-788-8: *"No public adjuster shall receive compensation in excess of 10% of the actual or final settlement of a loss covered by the employment contract."* A statute-only search finds no cap at all, and a source that pin-cites 10% to § 38a-726 has attached a real number to the wrong instrument.
What § 38a-726 does say, as amended in 2025. Subsection (a): no fee at all if, within thirty days of a loss to a structure covered by a fire insurance policy, the insurer offers in writing to pay the full policy limits — note all four conditions. Subsection (b), as rewritten by P.A. 25-106, bases the fee only on proceeds *"actually paid by the insurer on the account of a loss"* and requires collection *"after the insurer has paid such settlement proceeds"* — changed from the insured's receipt of proceeds. Reproductions carrying the older wording are wrong about when a public adjuster may collect.
Motor Vehicle Physical Damage Appraiser — Not a Minor Credential
§ 38a-790 requires a license before any person may *"act as an appraiser for motor vehicle physical damage claims on behalf of any insurance company."* The Department describes the covered activity more broadly than the statute does, reaching those who appraise damages to vehicles insured under automobile physical damage policies *"or on behalf of third party claimants."*
It has its own examination and it is the most expensive one Connecticut sells. Exam code 12-CT-16, one hour, $120 — more than the $105 combined property and casualty producer exam. The license fee structure is identical to the casualty adjuster: $130 initial, $80 renewal, plus the $50 filing fee on the initial application only.
Penalty is $2,500 — five hundred dollars higher than the casualty adjuster's $2,000, on otherwise identical wording.
⚠️ The appraiser conduct regulations are the most detailed in the adjuster space, and they bind claim handling directly. Regs. Conn. State Agencies §§ 38a-790-1 through 38a-790-8 cover display of license, agreement on repair price, leaving a copy of the appraisal with the repair shop, competitive estimates, reinspection on a request for supplementary allowances, and — the one that matters most — § 38a-790-6, which forbids an appraiser from requesting a specified repair shop. That is an anti-steering rule sitting in a regulation, not in the unfair practices act.
§ 38a-790-8 is a code of ethics effective September 25, 1992, requiring the appraiser to conduct himself *"in such a manner as to inspire public confidence by fair and honorable dealings,"* to appraise *"without prejudice against, or favoritism toward, any party,"* to disregard attempts to influence his judgment, to accept no gratuity beyond his employer's or customer's compensation, and to engage in no salvage trafficking.
That ethics regulation carries weight far beyond appraiser discipline. It was the predicate litigated in *Artie's Auto Body, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co.*, 317 Conn. 602 (2015), where the Supreme Court reversed a judgment of roughly $35 million, holding the regulation *"does not purport to regulate the conduct at issue"* — standardized hourly labor rates. Note who the plaintiffs were: auto body repair shops, not policyholders. A claim under this structure does not require the plaintiff to be an insured.
A Registration That Does Not Exist Until the Commissioner Says So
Connecticut runs a catastrophe adjuster registration program. It is not a license, there is no fee, and it does not exist on demand.
⚠️ The Commissioner must first declare that the storm qualifies. The Department states it plainly: the Commissioner *"must first declare that the storm qualifies for the catastrophe licensing program."* Until that declaration, there is no registration to obtain. An adjuster planning to work a Connecticut catastrophe cannot pre-register against a future event.
Term is 120 days per catastrophic event, and there is no renewal. The Department is explicit that the insurer *"must register you for each storm separately."*
⚠️ Eligibility is disjunctive — read the "or." The adjuster must *"have an active adjuster's license in another state OR prove that they have worked as an adjuster for at least two years."* Two years of experience is an independent alternative to holding a license anywhere. A great many summaries state the licensed-elsewhere branch and omit the experience branch entirely.
Only an authorized insurance company representative may register the adjuster. A third-party vendor cannot register individual adjusters — which matters commercially, because catastrophe staffing usually runs through vendors.
Individuals only. Business entities cannot hold a catastrophe registration, and public adjusters are excluded from the program. An adjuster already licensed in Connecticut does not need it. Photo identification must be worn while adjusting.
Do not confuse the registration with the placard. The Department separately issues an Insurance Claims Adjuster Permit, which is a disaster-area access credential — it gets an already-licensed adjuster through checkpoints into areas closed to the public after a presidential or gubernatorial declaration. Different instrument, different trigger, and it also does not apply to public adjusters.
There Is No "Casualty Adjuster Exam" — There Are Four
Pearson VUE administers a separate examination for each line of authority, and they are not the same length.
All Lines (12-CT-09) and All Lines Except Workers' Compensation (12-CT-10) run two hours. Workers' Compensation Only (12-CT-11) and Auto Only (12-CT-12) run one hour. All four cost $70. The public adjuster exam (12-CT-08) is two hours at $65, and the appraiser exam (12-CT-16) is one hour at $120.
⚠️ Question counts are not published, and this guide does not invent them. Pearson's Connecticut candidate handbook does not state them, and Pearson's published Connecticut content outline document covers only the producer and certified insurance consultant examinations — there is no adjuster, public adjuster or appraiser content outline in it. Figures circulating on third-party sites are not traceable to Pearson. The time limits and fees above are from the handbook and are reliable; treat any specific question count you encounter as unsourced until Pearson publishes one.
The passing score is a raw 70%, and Connecticut is unusually clear about it. The handbook states: *"The passing score required on the Bail Bonds is 80%. The passing score required on all other examinations is 70%."* The word *"scaled"* does not appear anywhere in the Connecticut handbook. Pretest questions are embedded and unidentified, and *"responses to them do not affect a candidate's score"* — so the 70% is a straight percentage of the scored items.
⚠️ Online delivery ended August 1, 2025. Every Connecticut insurance examination is now administered in person at a test center, scheduled at least twenty-four hours in advance. Material written before that date may still describe an online option.
Retakes require a twenty-four hour wait, and reservations cannot be made at the test center. Passing results are valid for one year — you have twelve months from the exam to submit the license application through NIPR.
Two Waiver Routes, and They Are the Same Two Everywhere
§ 38a-792(a)(2) lets the Commissioner waive the examination for a casualty adjuster applicant that (A) is a nonresident, or has its principal place of business in another state, and holds an equivalent license from any other state; or (B) *"at any time within two years next preceding the date of application has been licensed in this state under a license of the same type as the license applied for."*
§ 38a-790 carries the same two routes for appraisers, and § 38a-788 carries them for public adjusters — nonresident holding an equivalent license, or Connecticut-licensed in the same type within the preceding two years.
Note what the waiver reaches. It waives the examination. For the public adjuster that has a knock-on effect worth understanding: § 38a-788 conditions the forty-hour course on being *"admitted to such examination."* If there is no examination to be admitted to, the condition has nothing to attach to — and the Department's own process refers to a "pre-licensing waiver letter," which points the same way. This is a sensible reading rather than a stated rule, so confirm it with the Department before relying on it for a specific applicant.
Homeland Security applicants do not get the appraiser waiver — the Department requires them to pass the Connecticut examination.
Three Different Expiration Rules, and the Free Codifications Have the Old One
⚠️ This is the single most misreported fact about Connecticut adjuster licensing. In 2024 the legislature changed how casualty adjuster and appraiser licenses expire, and a great deal of published material still carries the superseded rule.
Public Act 24-138 amended § 38a-792(a)(1) by substituting *"initial license issued to an adjuster of casualty claims shall expire two years after the date of the licensee's birthday that preceded the date the license was issued"* for *"such license issued by the commissioner shall be in force until June thirtieth in each odd-numbered year."* It made the identical change to § 38a-790 for appraisers.
The Department states the rule slightly more precisely than the statute does: two years after the licensee's last day of the birth month preceding issuance. The birthday convention applies to licenses issued on or after October 1, 2024; licenses issued before that ran to June 30, 2025 on the old cycle.
So there are three conventions in play at once. Individual casualty adjusters and appraisers: birth month, every other year. Public adjusters: April 30 of each even-numbered year — § 38a-788 was not amended and still reads *"in force only until the first day of May in each even-numbered year."* Business entities of any type: June 30 of each odd-numbered year, the old convention preserved.
⚠️ There is no grace period. Miss the deadline and you cannot renew — you apply for a new license at the $130 reinstatement fee. The Department describes expiration as automatic and without penalty if no payment is submitted. A military waiver is available: the renewal fee is waived for a year of active duty service.
Renewal notices are emailed about ninety days before expiration, which is the only warning the system gives you.
Nothing substantive changed in 2025. Both sections were touched again by P.A. 25-69, but only for technical changes — § 38a-792(c) and § 38a-790(d)(1) and (2), effective June 23, 2025.
Connecticut Has No Claim-Handling Regulation — the Absence Is the Rule
Connecticut never adopted the NAIC Unfair Claims Settlement Practices model regulation. There is no state regulation prescribing acknowledgment deadlines, investigation deadlines or payment deadlines for property and casualty claims.
This can be proved rather than asserted. The state agency regulations under Title 38a run to roughly eighty subtitles, and there is no subtitle 816 — no regulation implementing the unfair insurance practices section. The only subtitle with a comparable caption is 819, "Advertisements of Accident and Sickness Insurance," which is not claim handling. The Department's own Title 38a regulations, §§ 38a-8-1 through 38a-8-126, are organizational, contested-case procedure, hearings, privacy and information security — with no substantive claim-handling timeframes anywhere in them.
⚠️ And the adjuster regulation points at rules that do not exist. Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 38a-792-4, captioned *"National standards,"* reads: *"Except to the extent that they may be modified or extended by state statutes or regulations, casualty adjusters, in respect to their rights and duties in the business of adjusting insurance claims, shall be guided by the Connecticut Unfair Insurance Practices Act, Section 38a-816(6) of the General Statutes, the regulations implementing its provisions, and the Code of Ethics as established by the National Association of Independent Insurance Adjusters, as amended from time to time."*
The regulations implementing its provisions do not exist. So what actually governs a Connecticut casualty adjuster's conduct is § 38a-816(6) itself, plus a private trade association's code of ethics, incorporated by reference and "as amended from time to time." That is an unusual arrangement — a state regulation delegating the operative professional standard to a body the state does not control, with the content able to change without any state action.
§ 38a-792-5 adds a narrow duty: notice of an offer of compromise or rejection of a claim, aimed at the adjuster who has interviewed a claimant shortly before the limitations period expires without settling.
Fifteen Practices, and the Frequency Element Only Covers One Subdivision
§ 38a-816(6) is the unfair claim settlement practices provision, and its chapeau carries the qualifier: *"Committing or performing with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice any of the following."* Fifteen subparagraphs follow, (A) through (O).
The ones an adjuster meets daily: misrepresenting pertinent facts or policy provisions; failing to acknowledge and act with reasonable promptness on claim communications; failing to adopt reasonable standards for the prompt investigation of claims; refusing to pay without conducting a reasonable investigation based on all available information; failing to affirm or deny coverage within a reasonable time after proof of loss statements are completed; failing to attempt in good faith to effectuate prompt, fair and equitable settlements where liability has become reasonably clear; compelling insureds to institute litigation by offering substantially less than amounts ultimately recovered; and failing to provide a reasonable explanation of the basis in the policy for a denial or a compromise offer.
Three more that get less attention and are just as actionable: making claim payments not accompanied by a statement setting forth the coverage under which they are paid; making known a policy of appealing arbitration awards to compel acceptance of lesser settlements; and delaying investigation by requiring both a preliminary claim report and a formal proof of loss containing substantially the same information.
⚠️ The frequency element sits inside subdivision (6). It is not in the section's chapeau. § 38a-816 has twenty-six subdivisions, and the general business practice language appears in exactly one of them. Subdivisions (1) through (5) and (7) through (26) carry no frequency requirement at all — so a single act can violate CUIPA under, for example, subdivision (8), false statements in an application, or subdivision (16), the total-loss sales tax rule.
Within subdivision (6), one claim is not enough. *Lees v. Middlesex Insurance Co.*, 229 Conn. 842, 849 (1994) — the legislature meant to *"exempt from coverage under CUIPA isolated instances of insurer misconduct,"* and misconduct in handling a single claim *"without any evidence of misconduct by the defendant in the processing of any other claim"* does not meet the standard.
Enforcement is administrative. Penalties run to $5,000 per violation and $50,000 in the aggregate, rising to $25,000 per violation and $250,000 in any six-month period for knowing violations, plus license suspension or revocation and restitution. Hearing notice is not less than thirty days after service.
No Private Right Under CUIPA — and CUTPA Does Not Get You Around It
⚠️ There is no private right of action under CUIPA, and this is no longer a question on which the trial courts split. In *Dorfman v. Smith*, 342 Conn. 582 (2022), the Supreme Court stated it directly: CUIPA *"does not authorize a private right of action but, instead, empowers the [insurance] commissioner to enforce its provisions through administrative action."*
Every subdivision of § 38a-816 is Commissioner-only as a standalone claim. The private route runs through the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act — and it arrives carrying CUIPA's elements with it.
⚠️ *Mead v. Burns*, 199 Conn. 651 (1986) allows an insured to plead CUTPA on a CUIPA predicate, but the CUTPA claim inherits CUIPA's requirements — the failure of the CUIPA claim is fatal to the CUTPA claim. State v. Acordia, Inc., 310 Conn. 1 (2013) sharpened it: conduct related to the business of insurance *"can violate CUTPA only if it violates CUIPA,"* because CUIPA is the exclusive and comprehensive source of public policy for insurance practices.
So the practical rule for claim-settlement conduct is a closed loop. No private CUIPA claim. A CUTPA claim only if the conduct violates CUIPA. And if the theory is unfair claim settlement under subdivision (6), the plaintiff must still prove a general business practice — meaning more than this one claim. A single mishandled file supports neither.
What survives a single-claim file is common-law bad faith, and that is the standard Connecticut outcome: the CUIPA and CUTPA counts are struck, and the bad faith count goes forward.
CUTPA mechanics. § 42-110g(a) requires an ascertainable loss and permits punitive damages in the court's discretion. § 42-110g(d) permits costs and reasonable attorney's fees. § 42-110g(f) is a three-year period that runs from the occurrence of the violation — not from discovery.
⚠️ Two things an adjuster trained in the neighboring New England market will import and should not. Connecticut's act has no pre-suit demand letter requirement and no multiple-damages provision. Punitive damages under § 42-110g(a) are discretionary and unmultiplied.
The Property Clock Is Printed Inside the Policy the Statute Prescribes
⚠️ Connecticut's first-party property payment deadline is real, and it is not where anyone looks for it. It is not in CUIPA and there is no claim-handling regulation. It is in the standard fire policy form set out in § 38a-307, under the heading *"When loss payable"*:
*"The amount of loss for which this Company may be liable shall be payable thirty days after proof of loss, as herein provided, is received by this Company and ascertainment of the loss is made either by agreement between the insured and this Company expressed in writing or by the filing with this Company of an award as herein provided."*
⚠️ Read the trigger — it is conjunctive, not a flat thirty days from proof of loss. Two conditions must both be met: the proof of loss must be received, and the amount must be ascertained, either by written agreement or by an appraisal award. An adjuster who diaries thirty days from proof of loss alone has the rule wrong in one direction; a course that says Connecticut has no property payment deadline has it wrong in the other.
Two companion provisions in the same form. The insurer may elect to repair, rebuild or replace rather than pay, but must give notice of that intention within thirty days after receipt of the proof of loss. And the parties may agree in writing to a partial advance payment, credited against the total — *"An advance payment shall not affect the requirement of this Company to pay the total amount of loss not later than thirty days after proof of loss."*
Proof of loss itself is due within sixty days under the prescribed form.
⚠️ The 60/20-day numbers are accident and health only, and they are widely misquoted. § 38a-816(15)(B) requires payment of accident and health claims — including claims for payment or reimbursement to health care providers — within sixty days of a paper claim and twenty days of an electronic one, with deficiency notice within thirty and ten days respectively and payment within thirty and ten days after the missing information arrives.
These are calendar days. The subdivision uses the bare formula *"not later than sixty days after receipt"* with no business-day qualifier anywhere in it, and the drafters used the word *"calendar"* elsewhere in the same subdivision when they meant it. Missing them costs the claim amount plus interest at 15% per annum, excused only where the Commissioner finds a legitimate dispute as to coverage, liability or damages, or claimant fraud.
Applying the sixty-day rule to a homeowners or automobile file is a mistake, and it is one that appears in published fifty-state compendia. Subdivision (15) is expressly limited to accident and health claims.
The Covenant, the Litigation Privilege, and a Punitive Rule That Surprises People
Connecticut's bad faith claim is breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, which attaches to every insurance contract — *Verrastro v. Middlesex Insurance Co.*, 207 Conn. 179, 190 (1988).
The standard is demanding. *De La Concha of Hartford, Inc. v. Aetna Life Insurance Co.*, 269 Conn. 424, 433 (2004): *"Bad faith means more than mere negligence; it involves a dishonest purpose."* *Dorfman* describes it as implying *"actual or constructive fraud, or a design to mislead or deceive another."* A legitimate coverage dispute is not bad faith — a party is entitled to take reasonable positions to protect its interests.
Third-party claimants cannot bring it. *Carford v. Empire Fire & Marine Insurance Co.*, 94 Conn. App. 41, 46 (2006): *"No claim of breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing will lie for conduct that is outside of a contractual relationship."* A separate route exists for judgment creditors — § 38a-321 permits a direct action against the carrier once a judgment against the insured goes unsatisfied.
⚠️ The litigation privilege is a real defense, and it moved twice. In *Dorfman v. Smith*, 342 Conn. 582 (2022), the Supreme Court held the absolute litigation privilege bars bad faith and CUTPA claims premised on the insurer's false pleadings and false discovery responses during the coverage litigation — even where the carrier allegedly concealed evidence and pleaded a knowingly false special defense. The remedy for that is sanctions, not a bad faith count.
Then the Appellate Court drew the line. *Bouazza v. Geico General Insurance Co.*, 230 Conn. App. 87, argued October 15, 2024 and officially released January 21, 2025, held the trial court improperly dismissed a bad faith claim, because allegations concerning conduct outside the judicial proceeding and prior to the commencement of the underlying litigation had *"no connection or logical relation to any ongoing judicial proceeding"* and were therefore not covered by the privilege.
The working line for an adjuster: conduct at the claim desk is exposed; conduct in litigation filings is privileged.
⚠️ Punitive damages are not what a national course teaches. Connecticut's common-law punitive award is limited to the plaintiff's litigation expenses, including attorney's fees, less taxable costs — *Berry v. Loiseau*, 223 Conn. 786 (1992). The liability trigger is *"reckless indifference to the rights of others or an intentional and wanton violation of those rights."* That ceiling still stands; *Bifolck v. Philip Morris, Inc.*, 324 Conn. 402 (2016), held only that the common-law measure does not govern a statutory punitive scheme.
Which is exactly why plaintiffs plead CUTPA. § 42-110g(a) punitive damages are not subject to the common-law ceiling. So the uncapped exposure runs through the statute, and the statute requires a CUIPA violation — which for claim settlement means a general business practice. The whole structure turns on that one element.
And fees do not follow a win. *ACMAT Corp. v. Greater N.Y. Mutual Ins. Co.*, 282 Conn. 576 (2007) declined to adopt the rule that a policyholder who prevails in a coverage action recovers its fees. Fees require a showing of bad faith conduct before or during the litigation.
Can the Adjuster Be Sued Personally?
Negligence: no duty to the insured. In *Danielsen v. USAA Casualty Insurance Co.* (D. Conn. 2015) the court dismissed a negligence claim against an independent adjuster, predicting Connecticut would hold that independent adjusters owe no duty of care to policyholders. The reasoning is worth carrying: *"The law of agency requires a duty of absolute loyalty of the adjuster to its employer, the insurer"* — a duty running to the insured would be irreconcilable with it.
⚠️ But note where the exposure goes instead. The same reasoning holds that the policyholder's remedy is a bad faith claim against the carrier, with the adjuster's conduct imputed to the insurer. Your file is the carrier's bad faith exposure. That is the practical takeaway, and it is more consequential than personal liability would be.
Common-law bad faith: no. The covenant arises out of the contract and the adjuster is not a party to it — *Carford*'s reasoning applies directly.
CUIPA and CUTPA: the live theory, and it is not foreclosed. Two textual hooks matter. § 38a-815 provides that "No person shall engage in this state in any trade practice which is defined in section 38a-816" — *person*, not *insurer*. And § 38a-792-4 expressly directs casualty adjusters to be guided by § 38a-816(6), so the regulator plainly treats adjusters as within CUIPA's conduct rules. Connecticut also holds that CUTPA reaches individuals who personally participate in the unfair practice; corporate or limited liability form is not a shield under that act.
The bar remains high. A plaintiff would still have to clear *Acordia* — the conduct must violate CUIPA — and then establish a general business practice attributable to that individual, which is a difficult thing to plead about one adjuster on one file.
This is genuinely unresolved. No Connecticut decision was located squarely holding an individual claims adjuster liable, or not liable, under CUTPA. The structure is settled; the answer is not.
The certain exposure is regulatory. The Department's Licensee Investigations Unit investigates misconduct by licensees — producers, adjusters and appraisers — and imposes administrative sanctions: fines, probation, suspension and revocation. It has no law enforcement authority; it is a regulator, not a prosecutor.
Not a No-Fault State, and the UIM Reduces
⚠️ Connecticut is not a no-fault state and has not been since 1994. §§ 38a-365 to 38a-369 were repealed by Public Act 93-297, effective January 1, 1994. Connecticut is a pure tort state: no personal injury protection mandate, and medical payments coverage is optional. A course teaching Connecticut as no-fault is teaching law that was repealed thirty-two years ago.
Minimum limits are 25/50/25 under § 14-112(a), raised by Public Act 17-114 effective January 1, 2018 for policies delivered, issued, renewed, amended or endorsed on or after that date. The prior limits were 20/40/10 — note the property damage figure went from $10,000 to $25,000, a 150% increase and much the largest of the three.
UM/UIM is mandatory at limits equal to the insured's bodily injury limits, unless the insured requests lower limits in writing with signed informed consent. There is no rejection down to zero — the insured may buy down but not out. On request and payment of premium the insurer must offer limits up to twice the bodily injury limits.
⚠️ Standard Connecticut underinsured motorist coverage REDUCES. It is not excess coverage. Regs. Conn. State Agencies § 38a-334-6 permits the policy to provide *"for the reduction of limits to the extent that damages have been paid by or on behalf of any person responsible for the injury, paid or are payable under any workers' compensation law, or paid under the policy in settlement of a liability claim."* An adjuster trained in an excess-UIM state will misreserve Connecticut files in a predictable direction.
Underinsured motorist CONVERSION coverage is Connecticut's distinctive product. § 38a-336a, created by the same 1993 act, is an optional buy-up that converts reducing coverage into non-reducing coverage: *"If the insured purchases such underinsured motorist conversion coverage, then in no event shall the underinsured motorist coverage be reduced on account of any payment by or on behalf of the tortfeasor or by any third party."* An anti-duplication guard survives — no payment under conversion coverage may duplicate payment from another source. Whether the file is a conversion file is one of the first questions to ask on a Connecticut UIM claim.
⚠️ Stacking is prohibited by statute, and the statute reversed the case law. § 38a-336(d): *"in no event shall the limit of liability for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage applicable to two or more motor vehicles ... be added together."* The same subsection makes the occupied non-owned vehicle's coverage primary and the insured's own coverage secondary. Earlier decisions permitting inter-policy and intra-policy stacking are superseded for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 1994 — material citing them as current Connecticut law is teaching repealed law.
⚠️ The UM/UIM limitation period runs from the DATE OF ACCIDENT. § 38a-336(g)(1) forbids an insurer from limiting the time to sue or demand arbitration to *"a period of less than three years from the date of accident."* Where the tortfeasor's insurer becomes insolvent or denies coverage, § 38a-336(g)(2) gives not less than one year from the insured's receipt of written notice of that fact. Note what this is: a floor on what the policy may impose, not a general statute of limitations — and a clock that can run out while the underlying liability claim is still being litigated.
A Formula, Not a Percentage — and the 15% Belongs to Theft
Connecticut has no percentage total-loss threshold. It uses a total loss formula, and as of 2026 the formula is defined in the statute. § 38a-353, as amended by Public Act 26-69, § 8, effective from passage: *"'constructive total loss' means the cost to repair or salvage such property, or the cost to both repair and salvage such property, equals or exceeds the total value of the property at the time of loss."*
⚠️ The valuation rule changed in 2026 and the source name is what changed. The insurer must *"use at least the average of the retail values"* given the vehicle by (1) the J.D. Power used car guide or its successor — the act struck *"National Automobile Dealers Association"* and substituted it — or any other publicly available automobile industry source approved by the Insurance Commissioner, and (2) one other approved industry source. Material naming NADA is now out of date, and the new alternative-source language is a genuine loosening.
⚠️ The "15% Connecticut total loss threshold" is a real number applied to the wrong sentence. § 14-16c(f) does contain fifteen percent. Read the trigger: a vehicle *"that has been declared a total loss in settlement of a claim for theft, having no damage to a major component part or having damage not exceeding (1) fifteen per cent of the retail value ... or (2) one thousand dollars ... shall not be required to have its certificate of title stamped."*
That is a title-branding exemption for recovered theft vehicles with minimal damage, on a disjunctive test — not a total loss threshold. Anyone publishing *"Connecticut total loss threshold: 15%"* has taken an authentic, correctly cited figure and applied it to a different question.
Branding. The insurer stamps the title "SALVAGE" when it takes possession of a declared total loss offered for sale in Connecticut, and "SALVAGE PARTS ONLY" where ten or more major component parts are damaged beyond repair.
Diminished value splits by who is claiming. Connecticut's first-party auto policy language covers the cost of repair, so a first-party diminished value claim is typically not covered — a contract result, not a statutory one. A third-party claim is different: Connecticut common law holds the negligent party responsible for the diminished value of the vehicle, and the measure is the vehicle's reasonable market value before the accident minus its reasonable market value after, plus interest from the date of loss (*Littlejohn v. Elionsky*, 130 Conn. 541). No Connecticut statute addresses diminished value.
Connecticut's Own Fire Policy — and a Twenty-Four Month Suit Clause
⚠️ Connecticut prescribes its own standard fire policy at § 38a-307, and it is not the national 165-line form. It is not line-numbered, and its terms differ where it counts.
The suit clause is twenty-four months: *"No suit or action on this policy for the recovery of any claim shall be sustainable in any court of law or equity unless all the requirements of this policy shall have been complied with, and unless commenced within twenty-four months next after inception of the loss."*
That is double the national twelve-month clause, and there are three wrong answers in circulation. The national form says twelve months. Connecticut said eighteen months from January 1, 2012 until Public Act 14-175 raised it to twenty-four, effective October 1, 2014 — the amending act shows the change literally, replacing *"eighteen"* with *"twenty-four."* So a pre-2014 secondary source gives eighteen, a national reference gives twelve, and the answer is twenty-four.
Appraisal is built into the prescribed form. On the written demand of either party each selects a competent and disinterested appraiser and notifies the other within twenty days; the appraisers select an umpire, and failing for fifteen days to agree on one, either party may ask a judge of a court of record in the county where the property is located to appoint one.
⚠️ Connecticut has a matching STATUTE, which puts it in the minority. § 38a-316e: *"When a covered loss for real property requires the replacement of an item or items and the replacement item or items do not match adjacent items in quality, color or size, the insurer shall replace all such items with material of like kind and quality so as to conform to a reasonably uniform appearance. This provision shall apply to interior and exterior covered losses."* Most states that impose a matching duty do it by regulation or bulletin; fifty-state charts built from code searches routinely miss states that legislate it.
And matching is an appraisal question, not a coverage question. *Klass v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.*, 341 Conn. 735 (2022) held that where the insurer concedes a covered peril, whether matching is required under § 38a-316e is an *"amount of loss"* question for the appraisers — because it is a fact-intensive, case-by-case visual judgment. The court expressly did not decide whether causation is a coverage question, so an appraisal panel's authority over causation remains open in Connecticut.
Connecticut is not a valued policy state. No valued policy section appears in chapter 700, and the prescribed form settles on actual cash value. Note that two neighboring states do have valued policy laws, which is how the error travels into regional material.
No statutory definition of actual cash value. A 2011 act titled *"An Act Concerning the Actual Cash Value of a Building"* — Public Act 11-196 — is often cited for one. The enrolled act is a single section that amends the fire policy form and enacts no definition. Connecticut also has no authority in either direction on whether labor may be depreciated in an actual cash value settlement.
The Connecticut-Only Problem With Its Own Chapter
Connecticut has an entire statutory chapter about deteriorating concrete foundations — chapter 138l, "Concrete Foundations That Have Deteriorated Due to the Presence of Pyrrhotite," §§ 8-441 et seq. No other state has anything like it, and an adjuster working Connecticut residential property will meet it.
⚠️ The coverage answer is the surprising part: these losses are generally NOT covered. In *Karas v. Liberty Insurance Corp.*, 335 Conn. 62 (officially released November 12, 2019, docket SC 20149), the Supreme Court held that the *"substantial impairment of structural integrity"* standard for collapse requires the home to be "in imminent danger of falling down or caving in" — deterioration that will take decades is not collapse. It further held that "foundation" unambiguously includes basement walls, so the foundation exclusion applies.
That holding is why the legislature built a substitute. § 38a-91vv authorizes the Connecticut Foundation Solutions Indemnity Company, a nonprofit captive insurer, and § 8-441 creates the Crumbling Foundations Assistance Fund. Funding ran up to $20 million per year for five years through bonding, and Public Act 18-160 imposed a $12 surcharge on homeowners policies through December 31, 2029, with 85% of the revenue going to the Fund.
Related obligations worth knowing. Public Act 16-45 requires concrete suppliers and installers to retain documentation for fifty years, and permits municipal reassessment on a homeowner's request. Public Act 18-179 requires the residential property condition disclosure form to recommend a foundation inspection.
One caution on the limitations period. Public Act 17-2 of the June 2017 special session, § 341, extended the period to sue on a denied foundation claim to one year after the insured receives written denial. Where that provision was codified could not be established, and it would interact directly with § 38a-307's twenty-four month clause — so confirm the operative period on any foundation denial rather than assuming the general property rule governs.
Notice Periods, Permitted Grounds, and a New Way to Prove Mailing
Homeowners, § 38a-316g. A policy in effect fewer than sixty days and not a renewal may be canceled on ten days' notice for nonpayment and thirty days' notice for any other reason. A policy in effect at least sixty days, or any renewal policy, carries the same ten and thirty day periods — but the permitted grounds narrow to three: nonpayment of premium; fraud or material misrepresentation; and physical changes in the property that increase the hazard.
The notice must say specific things, and that content requirement is easy to miss. As amended, the notice must disclose the cancellation; for nonpayment, that the insured may avoid cancellation by paying the unpaid premium before the effective date; for other grounds, the reason and the effective date; and in every case that any excess premium, if not tendered by the insurer, shall be refunded to the named insured upon demand.
Automobile, § 38a-343. A policy in effect fewer than sixty days requires forty-five days' notice, except fifteen days for nonpayment of the first premium on a new policy and ten days for nonpayment of any other premium or for material misrepresentation.
Nonrenewal, § 38a-323: sixty days' advance notice, for both personal and commercial risk. Conditional renewal uses the nonrenewal method.
⚠️ All three sections were amended in 2025, and the change was the same in each: proof of mailing. Notice may now be given by mail using an intelligent mail barcode tracking method or a similar tracking method developed by the United States Postal Service, effective July 1, 2025. The notice periods themselves did not change — a useful thing to know, because the amendment makes every one of these sections look freshly rewritten in a codification. Proof of mailing is what actually gets litigated in a cancellation dispute, so this is a substantive addition rather than a housekeeping one.
Seventy-Four Miles Per Hour, Somewhere in Connecticut
⚠️ A hurricane deductible cannot be applied unless the storm actually reaches hurricane strength in this state. § 38a-316a(b) permits it only *"if such hurricane results in a maximum sustained surface wind of seventy-four miles per hour or more for any part of this state."*
The window is defined at both ends. It opens with the National Hurricane Center's issuance of a hurricane warning for any part of Connecticut. It closes twenty-four hours after the last hurricane warning is terminated or twenty-four hours after the storm is last downgraded from hurricane status — whichever is earlier.
This is the rule a major coastal storm wrote. A storm that is downgraded below hurricane status before reaching Connecticut does not trigger hurricane deductibles no matter how much damage it does — only the ordinary all-other-perils deductible applies. On a large catastrophe that distinction is worth an enormous amount of money across a book of business, and it is the first thing to establish before deductibles are applied to a Connecticut wind file.
Related provisions in the same neighborhood. § 38a-316a and § 38a-316b also provide that the absence of storm shutters may not be the sole basis for refusing to write or renew, and require premium discounts for shutters and impact-resistant glazing. § 38a-316c establishes the Coastal Market Assistance Program.
The Numbers Change on October 1, 2026
Through September 30, 2026, § 38a-841(a)(1) obligates the Connecticut Insurance Guaranty Association for covered claims in excess of $100 and less than $500,000 for insolvencies where a final liquidation order was entered on or after October 1, 2015. Two legacy tiers survive for older insolvencies: $300,000 before October 1, 2007 and $400,000 between then and October 1, 2015.
⚠️ $300,000 is the legacy tier, not the current cap. It is the figure most often quoted as Connecticut's guaranty limit and it has been superseded for more than a decade.
Workers' compensation claims are paid in full. The association *"shall pay the full amount of any such claim arising out of a workers' compensation policy"* — no cap at all — subject only to the insolvent insurer's own policy obligation. There is also a two-year filing bar running from the declaration of insolvency for every other claim type; workers' compensation claims escape it if timely filed in accordance with § 31-294c.
⚠️ Unearned premium is currently an inversion of the national rule. Connecticut refunds only one-half of the unearned premium, capped at $2,000 per policy. Most states refund the full amount against a much higher cap.
The net worth exclusion is also drafted unusually. § 38a-838 excludes claims by a person who is not a resident of this state against an insured whose net worth exceeded $25 million at policy issuance or at any time after — and carves workers' compensation claims back in regardless of net worth.
⚠️ Public Act 26-69, § 20 rewrites all of this effective October 1, 2026. Read from the enrolled act: the $100 claimant deductible is deleted outright; *"less than"* becomes *"less than or equal to"* on the caps; the one-half rule on unearned premium is deleted so the full unearned premium is refundable, and that cap rises from $2,000 to $50,000; a new $1,000,000 limit is added for first-party real property claims arising from a single occurrence under a policy covering commercial or residential property; and a new $500,000 aggregate applies to all first- and third-party claims under a policy or endorsement providing cybersecurity coverage arising out of a single insured event, regardless of the number of claims made or the number of claimants. The tiered caps and the workers' compensation treatment are unchanged.
⚠️ Note the date asymmetry, because it is the kind of thing that gets missed. The act takes effect October 1, 2026, but the new $1,000,000 real property limit attaches to insurers *"determined to be insolvent on or after June 1, 2026"* — a trigger date that precedes the act's own effective date.
Advertising the fund is prohibited. § 38a-852 makes any use of guaranty association protection in the *"solicitation, negotiation, procurement or effectuation of insurance"* a violation of § 38a-815 — a CUIPA violation, enforced under § 38a-817 — with a safe harbor for any publication approved by the commissioner.
No Warning Statement Required, and a Reporting Duty That Is Narrower Than It Looks
Insurance fraud is a class D felony under § 53a-215 — presenting a statement to an insurer with intent to defraud, knowing it contains false, incomplete or misleading information material to an application or a claim, or preparing or assisting in such a statement. *"Statement"* is defined broadly and reaches notices, invoices, damage estimates, bills, test results and other evidence of loss.
⚠️ Connecticut does NOT require a fraud warning statement on claim forms. The NAIC's own fraud-law chart records Connecticut as having no provision, and no statute or regulation imposing one was located. This is worth knowing precisely because you will see the warning on Connecticut claim forms all the time — national carriers standardize their forms across states. Having seen the warning on a Connecticut form is not evidence that Connecticut requires it.
Mandatory reporting exists, but only for health insurance fraud. § 53-445(a): *"Any person, including an insurer, who has knowledge of or has reason to believe that health insurance fraud ... has occurred, shall provide notice"* to the Insurance Commissioner. No deadline is stated in the section. Immunity follows in § 53-445(d) — no liability *"for libel, slander or any other civil liability"* unless the person disclosed false information with malice or wilful intent to injure.
⚠️ The motor vehicle fraud reporting duty is being repealed. § 38a-356(c) has long required each insurer to file an annual report with the Commissioner on or before March thirty-first detailing motor vehicle insurance fraud information and investigations. Public Act 26-69, § 9 deletes that subsection effective October 1, 2026. The information-sharing duties survive: an insurer must still furnish records on written request from authorized employees of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, the Department of Motor Vehicles or a local police department, and may still disclose fraud information to central reporting bureaus and law enforcement on its own initiative.
Beyond those two, individual claim referrals are permissive rather than mandatory. There is no general all-lines duty to report a suspected fraudulent claim.
⚠️ There is no dedicated insurance fraud bureau, and the authority is split in an unusual way. The Department's Licensee Investigations Unit handles licensee misconduct administratively and has no law enforcement power. Workers' compensation fraud sits somewhere else entirely — § 31-290d places a workers' compensation fraud unit within the office of the Chief State's Attorney, in the Division of Criminal Justice, reporting quarterly to the Workers' Compensation Commission chairperson, its advisory board and the Insurance Commissioner.
No antifraud plan or special investigative unit is mandated. The Department describes itself as assisting insurers' special investigative units, which presupposes that maintaining one is voluntary.
Two Wage Indices, a Conclusive Presumption, and the Employee Picks the Doctor
Connecticut's compensation rate is indexed and resets every October 1. For October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026: total incapacity under § 31-307 pays a maximum of $1,716.00 and a minimum of $343.20; permanent partial disability under § 31-308(b) pays a maximum of $1,220.00 and a minimum of $50.00.
⚠️ The benefit is 75% of the injured employee's AFTER-TAX average weekly wage — not the far more common two-thirds of gross. An adjuster applying a two-thirds-of-gross formula will be wrong, and wrong in different directions at different wage levels.
⚠️ Connecticut uses two different wage indices in one benefit schedule. The total incapacity maximum equals 100% of the average weekly earnings of all employees in the state; the permanent partial maximum is pegged to the average weekly earnings of production and related workers in manufacturing — a separate and lower figure. Most states run everything off one index.
These figures turn over shortly. The Commission publishes the new wage figures by memorandum in early September, and the next rate year begins October 1, 2026. Do not extrapolate the next set from the current one.
A new benefit class arrives October 1, 2026. Public Act 26-12 adds § 31-307(e): notwithstanding § 31-308 and § 31-307(a), an employee who suffers total or partial incapacity as a result of a physical or negligent assault upon a health care provider or other employee of a health care facility or institution, acting in the discharge of duties within the scope of employment, is paid 100% of average weekly earnings. Note that it reaches partial incapacity as well as total, and overrides the permanent partial section too.
An older 100% provision is often missed. § 31-307(b) already pays 100% of average weekly earnings where the injury or illness was caused by the employer's violation of a health or safety regulation that was cited and not abated within the time fixed by the citation.
Waiting period, § 31-295: no compensation unless incapacity exceeds three days; if it reaches seven days or longer, compensation is retroactive to the date of injury.
Notice and filing. The employee must report the injury to the employer immediately — no numeric deadline — and the Commission furnishes Form 30C within five business days of the employer's first report. The claim itself must be filed within one year of the accident, or three years from the first manifestation of a symptom of an occupational disease.
⚠️ Twenty-eight days to accept or contest, and the default is conclusive. Under § 31-294c the employer must file notice contesting liability on or before the twenty-eighth day after receiving a written notice of claim. Fail to contest or to commence payment within that window and the employer is *"conclusively presumed to have accepted the compensability"* of the alleged injury or death. Conclusive, not rebuttable — harsher than the presumption most states apply. An employer who commences payment without contesting may still contest the extent of disability within one year.
⚠️ The employee selects the physician. § 31-294d: *"The employee shall select the physician, surgeon, physician assistant or advanced practice registered nurse from an approved list."* The employer selects only if the employee is unable to, and then subject to ratification by the employee. A narrow exception lets a staff physician render initial treatment, after which the worker *"may thereafter select his own physician."* Connecticut does permit approved medical care plans that channel the choice within a network, and that is the practical limit on the rule.
⚠️ The employer's lien is reduced by one-third when the employee brought the action. Under § 31-293 the employer's claim takes precedence over the employee's in a third-party recovery, but only after deduction of reasonable and necessary expenditures including attorney's fees — and *"If the action has been brought by the employee, the claim of the employer shall be reduced by one-third of the amount of the benefits to be reimbursed to the employer."* The reduction inures solely to the employee's benefit and does not apply where reimbursement runs to the State or a political subdivision. The lien requires written notice before judgment or settlement.
Connecticut does not apply a made-whole rule here. It applies a mechanical one-third reduction instead — a substitution for the doctrine rather than a version of it, and a common miscoding from national treatises.
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