For the purposes of this title:

(a) “Credit disability insurance” means insurance of a debtor to provide indemnity for payments becoming due on a specific loan or other credit transaction while the debtor is disabled as defined in the policy.

(b) “Creditor” means the lender of money or vendor or lessor of goods, services, property, rights, or privileges, for which payment is arranged through a credit transaction, who has directly participated in, arranged, or received a commission or other compensation for the sale of credit disability insurance to the debtor, or any successor to the right, title, or interest of any such lender, vendor, or lessor, and an affiliate, associate, or subsidiary of any of them or any director, officer, or employee of any of them, or any other person in any way associated with any of them.

(c) “Debtor” means a borrower of money or a purchaser or lessee of goods, services, property, rights, or privileges for which payment is arranged through a credit transaction.

(d) “Creditor’s remedy” means and includes the imposition of any late charge or penalty, the acceleration of the maturity of all or any part of the indebtedness, the collection or assignment for the collection of all or any part of the indebtedness, the commencement of any action or special proceeding, or the enforcement of any security interest in any manner, including, but not limited to, repossession, foreclosure, or the exercise of a power of sale contained in a deed of trust or mortgage.

(e) “Disability claim period” or “claim period” means the period beginning on the due date of the first payment not paid by the debtor for which the debtor claims disability coverage arising from a then current disability and continuing until three calendar months thereafter or until the insurer pays or rejects the claim, whichever occurs sooner.

(f) “Notice” to a creditor means written notice deposited in the United States mail, postage prepaid, addressed to the creditor at the location where payments on the loan or credit transaction are normally required to be sent by the debtor. A creditor may elect to require that written notice, otherwise complying with the requirements of this subdivision, be sent to a different location or may elect to accept telephonic notice to a telephone number specified by the creditor, in either case in lieu of notice being sent to the location where payments are regularly required to be sent, if that location or telephone number is clearly and conspicuously disclosed as the proper place to direct any notice to the creditor relating to any claim of disability on each monthly billing, or on or in each payment coupon book (by adhesive attachment, republication, or otherwise), as the case may be, or (if payments are automatically deducted from an account of the debtor) on the annual statement of loan activity. In any particular instance a creditor may waive the requirement that notice be in writing and accept oral notice.

(Amended by Stats. 1984, Ch. 1200, Sec. 1. Effective September 17, 1984.)