Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner: Don’t Deny Earthquake Claims as Man-Made by Linking Them to Fracking

The jury is still out on whether hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” causes earthquakes, but carriers whose policies afford coverage for quakes have recently been denying such claims, asserting that they are excluded because they are attributable to a man-made cause – oil and gas production – rather than to a purely natural one.  Early last month, Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak cautioned against that, issuing a Bulletin warning earthquake insurers that his office would be forced “to take appropriate action to enforce the law” if they continued to deny quake claims on the basis of what he called “unsettled science.” Oklahoma has experienced a remarkable rise in earthquake activity in recent years.  According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, the state…