In Westchester County Med. Ctr. v. New York Cent. Mut. Fire Ins. Co. (262 A.D.2d 553 [2nd Dept 1999]), the Appellate Division, Second Department, admonished a plaintiff who failed to respond to a defendant's verification request because it deemed the request to be "unintelligible." The Court found that whether or not the request was confusing, it was clearly a verification request that plaintiff could not ignore without placing itself in peril. (See id. at 555.) The Second Department found that under the old regulations, a follow-up letter that was sent beyond the 10-day window period was timely and that the insured was entitled to the tolling of the 30 days as contained in 11 NYCRR 65.15 (g). Since the plaintiff never responded to the follow-up verification letter, the 30-day period in which defendant had to pay or deny the claim never commenced and defendant's denial of the claim was not untimely. There, the defendant received the claim on April 28, 1997, and made a timely demand for additional verification on May 1. Having not received verification within 30 days, the defendant then made a "timely demand" for follow-up verification on June 13. (262 AD2d at 555.) The defendant thereupon denied the claim on June 19. In its brief before the Second Department, the defendant insurer argued that even assuming June 13 was the date it mailed the follow-up request, its denial was still timely on the grounds that the regulations (11 NYCRR 65.15 [g] [10]) only addressed the repercussions if the initial (additional) verification request was not timely sent, and then did not require preclusion of the defense but only a reduction of the 30-day period in which the insurer had to pay or deny the claim, after receiving the verification material, by the amount of the delay. Without commenting on defendant's reasoning, the Second Department found that defendant had submitted a timely follow-up request.