The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance recently issued a bulletin providing guidance to the Tennessee captive insurance industry on credit for reinsurance obtained by Tennessee captives from unauthorized reinsurers. Pursuant to Tennessee Insurance Code Section 56-13-112, the Department makes an initial determination whether to allow a Tennessee captive insurance…

Read More Tennessee Issues Bulletin Re Reinsurance Ceded to Unauthorized Reinsurers by Tennessee Captives

Within an environment of increased federal and state regulatory emphasis on health insurance related issues arising due to the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the Texas Department of Insurance (“TDI”) has drafted new and potentially transformative rules relating to medical…

Read More New Texas Medical Stop-Loss Rules Drafted by Texas Department of Insurance

New York’s Department of Financial Services is once again changing personnel ; Acting Superintendent Anthony Albanese gave notice that he will be leaving the agency.

Albanese has been Acting Superintendent of Financial Services — which was created in 2011 after the merger of the state’s banking and insurance departments —…

Read More New York’s Acting Superintendent Albanese Announces His Departure

A panel of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (“NAIC”) recently approved a preliminary framework that may pave the way towards eliminating variable annuities captive reinsurance transactions. The framework, which changes parts of the capital and reserve framework that creates incentives to use such captives, is scheduled to be discussed…

Read More NAIC Panel Approval May Pave Way Towards Elimination of Variable Annuity Captives

Last week, an NAIC task force moved forward in recommending a cybersecurity “bill of rights” that insurance regulators could provide consumers, essentially creating an expectation of notice of a breach “never more than 60 days” after a breach, and the right to one year of free credit monitoring. Insurance industry…

Read More NAIC Cybersecurity “Bill of Rights” Wrong to Many Insurers

In its commitment to address risks of Global Systemically Important Insurers (“G-SIIs”) on the global financial system, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (“IAIS”) recently announced completion of its development of the Higher Loss Absorbency (“HLA”) requirement for G-SIIs. The HLA was established to help reduce the impact of the…
Read More International Association of Insurance Supervisors Completes Higher Loss Absorbency Requirement for Global Systemically Important Insurers

An Illinois trial court recently addressed the issue of whether an insurer exhausted its limits of liability in paying nearly $90 million for an insured’s defense and indemnity associated with asbestos bodily injury claims.  CNA issued umbrella and excess insurance to Borg-Warner Corporation and contended that the occurrence limits of…
Read More Illinois Court: Multi-year Policy Limits Applied To Entire Policy Period, Not Annually, And Payments For Potentially Covered Claims Established Exhaustion

The majority of states have now adopted the ORSA Model Law and the first filings are officially due by the end of 2015.  The NAIC has been conducting an ORSA pilot project for the last 3 years and many companies participated.  The participating companies received valuable input regarding their ORSA …
Read More Many Insurers to be Filing ORSA’s for the First Time in the 4th Quarter

This month, the NAIC set forth a variety of proposals relating to changes risk-based capital (“RBC”) requirements, as well as treatment of investment affiliates.  In particular, the NAIC seeks to require life insurers to actively disclosure how the use of captives to manage their A-XXX risks would impact the insurer’s…
Read More NAIC Proposes Changes to Life Insurer Disclosure Requirements and Treatment of Investment Affiliates

On October 6, 2015 California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 575, requiring annual notifications of certain nonforfeiture benefits under long-term care insurance contracts. Under current law, an insurer is required to offer, at the time of application for a long-term care insurance contract, an option to purchase…

Read More California Governor Signs Long-term Care Insurance Bill