Massachusetts Ch. 187: Audit Your Policies Before Nov. 5

Section 2C of chapter 175 makes it unlawful to include an endorsement barring an insured from "hiring, retaining, engaging, utilizing, consulting or contracting with a public insurance adjuster" as a condition to recovery. ¹ Six verbs. An endorsement drafted to bar consulting does the work of one drafted to bar hiring, and neither has to contain the word "prohibit," which is the word most adjusters will type into the PDF search bar first.

Chapter 187 was approved on August 7, 2026. ¹² It carries no emergency preamble and no stated effective date, and a Massachusetts act in that posture takes effect ninety days after the Governor's approval. ³ That lands on Thursday, November 5, 2026, which leaves September and October to work through the book.

One wrinkle in the record.

The Legislature's Acts of 2026 index line for Chapter 187 reads "Approved by the Governor, August 10, 2026," ¹ which would move the date to November 8. Use the session law's own text and NAPIA's account, both of which say August 7 ², and calendar the first week of November as the boundary rather than betting a file on a single Thursday.

Which policies to pull first

Section 2C names its targets in the operative sentence: "a company as defined in section 1 and any non-admitted or surplus lines insurer." ¹ Non-admitted paper is written in expressly, and the audit starts there, because manuscript wording is where you would expect to find it: coastal wind placements, vacant and renovation risks, habitational schedules, anything bound through a wholesale broker on a form that never went through a Massachusetts form filing. The order that works is every open E and S file first, then every open admitted file carrying a manuscript endorsement.

The remedy the statute picks shapes how you log the finding. Offending language is unenforceable and "shall be excised from the policy of insurance," with all remaining policy language, forms and endorsements unaffected. ¹ So the entry you are building is an excision record, and the unit is whatever the statute reaches: language, form or endorsement, a single sentence or the whole thing. The rest of the policy survives.

The statute defines its subject by cross-reference to G.L. c.175 s.162 ¹, so an endorsement that uses some other label for the same role is something you flag in the log and resolve later, not something the audit decides. S.785 was sponsored by Senator Joan B. Lovely, and NAPIA counts Massachusetts as only the third state in the nation to enact legislation specifically protecting a policyholder's right to hire a public insurance adjuster. ² If you hold licenses in several states, track this one separately from the fee and contract rules you already follow state to state.

The Act also adds the practice to the c.176D unfair-claim-settlement-practices list ¹, which a later post takes up alongside the Massachusetts demand-letter mechanics. Whether section 2C reaches policies already in force on the effective date is an open question this post does not resolve. The audit runs either way, and it produces the same record either way: form number, edition date, and the sentence quoted as printed.

What to search, and what to write down

The audit works from the declarations page outward. The forms and endorsements schedule tells you what should be attached; the endorsement PDFs tell you what is. Search each form for all six verbs, not just for "prohibit," and for both "public adjuster" and "public insurance adjuster," then read fifty words on either side of every hit, because the restriction often sits in a conditions paragraph rather than in an exclusion. A conditions paragraph that withholds payment where the insured utilizes a public adjuster never uses the word prohibit and never sits under an exclusions heading. Then log it.

Where to look	What to search	What to log
Declarations page, forms and endorsements schedule	Every listed form number against your standard library; flag anything manuscript or unfamiliar	Form number and edition date exactly as printed, for each flagged form
The endorsement forms themselves	hiring, retaining, engaging, utilizing, consulting, contracting; plus "public adjuster" and "public insurance adjuster"	The sentence quoted verbatim, with page number and form number
Conditions / duties after loss	"public adjuster" within fifty words of "condition," "recovery," "no coverage"	Whether the language is framed as a condition to recovery
Binder or cover note on the placement	Endorsement schedule on the binder against the schedule on the issued policy	Any form appearing on one document and not the other
Policy jacket and wrap-around forms	Same verb string across the jacket, not just the scheduled endorsements	The jacket form number and edition date, and the quoted sentence

The table covers what to record at each location. Put the named insured, policy number, carrier or syndicate and renewal date at the head of every entry so the sheet sorts. On surplus-lines placements, add a line comparing the endorsement schedule on the binder or cover note against the schedule on the issued policy, because those two documents do not always match, and a form that shows up on one and not the other is the kind of thing you want to have noticed in September rather than during a coverage call in November. Sorted by renewal date, the list separates the files that need a conversation before the first week of November from the ones that renew after it.

What adjusters are checking before November