2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB2221

HB2221 creates Insurance Code Chapter 1702, reorganizing rules for life insurance, annuities, accident and health insurance, and health maintenance organizations.

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Official caption: Relating to certain trade practices related to life insurance, annuity contracts, and accident and health coverage.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Hull. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB2221 creates Insurance Code Chapter 1702, reorganizing rules for life insurance, annuities, accident and health insurance, and health maintenance organizations.
Related extras: Insurers, HMOs and agents may offer qualifying products or services at no or reduced cost even when those extras are not written into the policy or contract.
Tracking devices: Before using a device to track or gather an individual’s data as part of a qualifying extra, the insurer, HMO or agent must disclose its intended use and obtain that person’s consent.
Gifts and drawings: Noncash gifts, meals, services and charitable donations on a consumer’s behalf are allowed subject to commissioner-determined reasonable cost limits, nondiscriminatory offers and no requirement to buy, keep or renew coverage in exchange.
Other retained rules and exceptions: The new chapter separately prohibits undisclosed contract arrangements, improper premium rebates, special advantages and securities-based sales inducements for life/annuity and accident/health coverage.

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What does it do?

HB2221 creates Insurance Code Chapter 1702, reorganizing rules for life insurance, annuities, accident and health insurance, and health maintenance organizations. It permits specified insurance-related extras and marketing incentives while retaining restrictions on improper rebates, inducements and discrimination. It also covers specified third-party administrators and multiple-employer welfare arrangements. Although effective September 1, 2025, the changes apply to policies and contracts delivered, issued for delivery or renewed on or after January 1, 2026. Earlier policies and contracts remain governed by the former law for this purpose. Final law, Sections 1–2 and 8–9; history.

Related extras: Insurers, HMOs and agents may offer qualifying products or services at no or reduced cost even when those extras are not written into the policy or contract. They must relate to the coverage and primarily serve a listed purpose: reducing or assessing risk or claim costs, educating about risk, improving health or financial wellness, providing post-loss services, encouraging health-related behavior changes, or helping administer employee or retiree coverage. Costs must be reasonable compared with premiums or coverage for the policy class. Providers must supply help-contact information and use documented, objective eligibility criteria, offer the extra without unfair discrimination, and retain those criteria for the insurance department. This is permission to offer qualifying extras, not a requirement to provide every customer a free benefit. Final law, Sections 1702.002, 1702.005 and 1702.051.

Tracking devices: Before using a device to track or gather an individual’s data as part of a qualifying extra, the insurer, HMO or agent must disclose its intended use and obtain that person’s consent. The new chapter does not authorize obtaining tracking-device information in violation of Insurance Code Chapters 601 or 602 privacy requirements. Final law, Sections 1702.005(3) and 1702.051(d).

Gifts and drawings: Noncash gifts, meals, services and charitable donations on a consumer’s behalf are allowed subject to commissioner-determined reasonable cost limits, nondiscriminatory offers and no requirement to buy, keep or renew coverage in exchange. Raffles or drawings must also be otherwise lawful, free to enter, open to the public, within commissioner-determined reasonable prize limits and carry no coverage-purchase obligation. Separate exceptions retain the $25-or-less allowance for customary promotional or educational items and courtesies; that figure is not a blanket cap on every permitted extra. Except as the chapter allows, coverage cannot be offered as an inducement to buy another policy or contract, and the law restricts advertising it as “free” or “no cost.” Final law, Sections 1702.052–.053, .104(5) and .154(3).

Other retained rules and exceptions: The new chapter separately prohibits undisclosed contract arrangements, improper premium rebates, special advantages and securities-based sales inducements for life/annuity and accident/health coverage. It restricts distinctions or unfair discrimination between people of the same class and equal life expectancy, subject to stated exceptions and other applicable health-coverage law. Exceptions include fair surplus-funded bonuses, specified group-policy year-end premium adjustments, and participating policies otherwise allowed by law. Life/annuity exceptions also include collection-cost savings on certain industrial policies and surrender-charge waivers on qualifying same-company or affiliate annuity exchanges, with explanation and credit for time held. Health insurers and HMOs may offer wellness-program premium discounts or reductions in copayments, coinsurance or deductibles. The commissioner may adopt implementing rules. Final law, Sections 1702.006 and .101–.155.

What changed along the way?

The introduced bill, House committee printing and engrossed bill have the same substantive text. The Senate committee substitute expressly included third-party administrators in the agent definition and applicability provisions, added certified multiple-employer welfare arrangements to the covered health entities, and changed the wellness-incentive exception’s wording: the final language says those incentives are not prohibited rebates or inducements, unfair competition, or unfair/deceptive insurance trade practices, rather than the earlier “unfair discrimination” wording. These are committee-substitute changes, not floor amendments. Text-version index; engrossed text; Senate committee text.

The amendment index lists one floor amendment: Senator Kolkhorst’s Senate second-reading amendment, adopted May 26, 2025. It added the privacy-law safeguard and advance disclosure/consent requirements for tracking devices. Both additions appear in the enrolled law. The House concurred in the Senate changes May 28; no rejected amendments are listed in the official index. Amendment index; complete amendment; final law.

The act repeals Sections 541.056, 541.057, 541.058, 543.003 and 1201.013 while putting revised rebate, discrimination, exception and wellness provisions in the new chapter. It updates cross-references for the disciplinary-action time-limit exception involving race/color discrimination, multiple-employer and employer-plan wellness incentives, and notice of annuity surrender-charge waivers. This is not simply deletion of all the old consumer protections: many prohibitions are restated, but their location, scope and exceptions change. Final law, Sections 2–7; official historical statutes, select August 31, 2025.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Consumers may receive qualifying risk-reduction, wellness or financial-education services, marketing gifts or wellness incentives. Insurers and agents gain more room to offer such extras, but must meet cost, fairness, documentation and disclosure requirements. Consumers using tracking-device programs gain an express advance-consent requirement. None of these provisions guarantees a premium reduction, a particular gift or a health outcome. Final law.

Enforcement is not identical to before: The repealed Sections 541.056 and .057 expressly classified specified conduct as unfair or deceptive insurance practices. Section 541.151 authorizes private damages actions for conduct defined that way in Chapter 541’s Subchapter B, among other grounds. Moving the prohibitions into Chapter 1702 removes those particular definitions from that express route; the new chapter does not add its own private-damages provision. However, Section 1702.005 preserves restrictions under Chapter 541 and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The same conduct may still violate other provisions, so the law should not be described as eliminating every consumer lawsuit or regulatory remedy. Final law, Sections 1702.005 and 7; official Section 541.151 text, August 31, 2025.

The Legislative Budget Board’s final posted fiscal note, dated May 27, 2025, anticipates no significant state or local-government fiscal effect and assumes implementation costs can be absorbed using existing resources. The earlier introduced, engrossed and Senate-substitute notes reach the same result. These estimates do not calculate private compliance costs, consumer savings or insurance premiums. Final posted fiscal note.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.