House Bill 2394 would amend several sections of chapter 48.135 RCW, reenact and amend RCW 9A.04.080, and add a new section to chapter 48.135 RCW that defines "insurer." The bill defines a list of acts that constitute insurance fraud (including false information in applications or claims, embezzlement or conversion of insurer or consumer property, falsified bills or medical records, identity misrepresentation in insurance contexts, improper use of premium funds, biased appraisals, and attempts or conspiracies to commit those acts) and designates insurance fraud as a class B felony, with each instance treated as a separate offense. Venue for prosecution and a 10-year prosecution period for violations of RCW 48.135.010 are among the listed procedural rules. The bill creates an insurance fraud program within the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, authorizing the commissioner to employ staff, appoint a full‑time chief, fund state patrol officers and assistant attorneys general from the program budget, make grants or reimburse local prosecuting attorneys, and require an agreement on payment of prosecution costs before the commissioner seeks prosecution in a county. The commissioner is given investigatory powers including administering oaths, issuing subpoenas, compelling production of documents, conducting independent investigations (including out‑of‑state under stated conditions), sharing records with law enforcement and regulatory bodies, and using technology for detection and analysis. Insurers, certain licensees, and other specified entities are required to disclose information about suspected fraud to the commissioner, and some investigative records and intelligence are made exempt from public inspection under chapter 42.56 RCW. The bill also reenacts and amends the statute of limitations provisions in RCW 9A.04.080, restating a variety of specific time limits for commencing prosecutions for listed offenses and adding tolling and special rules for certain offenses; the text references numerous RCW sections and includes a severability clause. Important context is missing from the extracted material: several amended sections (RCW 48.135.050, .060, .070) are not shown in full, one section about out‑of‑state investigations is incomplete, and portions of the reenacted RCW 9A.04.080 list of offenses are truncated, so the full scope and exact wording of some changes cannot be confirmed from these extracts.

If enacted, the bill gives the Office of the Insurance Commissioner a much stronger, better‑funded role in investigating and prosecuting suspected insurance fraud: the office can hire staff, appoint a full‑time fraud chief, acquire technology, run independent investigations, issue subpoenas, share and receive exempt investigative records, and fund state patrol officers and assistant attorneys general from its program budget. Insurers, licensees, certain accountants and premium finance companies must report suspected fraud and, in the case of premium finance agreements, send copies of the agreement and policy to the commissioner within 30 days, so insurers will face new reporting and cooperation duties and some additional compliance costs while the commissioner and local prosecutors gain new tools and potential budget support for prosecutions; victims and insurers are also explicitly eligible for restitution and each act of insurance fraud is treated as a separate class B felony with a ten‑year prosecution window from commission or discovery. Some implementation details are unclear from the provided text: the exact content of several amended sections (48.135.050, .060, .070) and the full rules for out‑of‑state investigations are not included here, and those missing provisions could materially affect how investigations, cost agreements with counties, and information‑sharing operate in practice.