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The following topics
are on the current IIABNY board action list.
1. Compensation Disclosure. Status with the
Insurance Department.
2. Dishonored Checks. IIABNY will seek sponsorship
of legislation to offset current Ins. Dept. Gen. Counsel opinion
that payment to agents is not necessarily payment to a company,
vis-à-vis a current situation where one carrier is
sweeping agency accounts including bad checks and not canceling
policies where that has occurred.
The November Board meeting included the following matters:
1. Direct Writer/Captive Commodity Sales. The
state and national associations want to step up public education
about the difference between these and agency driven sales.
Special interest is where have been losses involving lack
of coverage from a direct/captive writer policy replacing
an independent agency produced policy. Many times, the direct/captive
writer will include lower limits or even less coverage in
order to save the customer money, while the customer may be
unaware that the replacing coverage is not the same. The membership
wants the association to take a more pro-active role over
this issue, since press releases don’t seem to do the
job, so a national task force is to address the issue of different
coverage and direct/captive writer sales practices in general.
2. NYPIUA Bonds. There had been a proposal
to extend NYPIUA’s authority to the commercial bond
market to provide contractor bonds to women and minority owned
contracting firms currently having problems securing required
bonds for municipal work. We have since learned that this
probably won’t come to pass because the Surety Assn.
of America might find a way to cooperatively fill the gap.
3. Next Gen. Conference. There were 30 attendees
at the recent conference, all of whom raved about the classes
and sessions. IIABNY will survey agencies to see what programs
the next gen. associates want. More attendees are encouraged.
4. Strategic Initiative - Education. All
6 training modules are now developed and the website is complete.
The program is to be rolled out January 2008.
5. Strategic Initiative – Carrier Advocacy.
We published the results of our summer carrier survey and
several companies were complimentary. A letter will go out
to membership encouraging participation in this quarterly
exercise to help us keep the companies on their toes. We use
an outside party to compile the responses so that IIABNY is
always at arms length with the results. The carriers are very
interested in these reports.
6. Strategic Initiative – Improved E&O Program.
Westport is going to automatic renewals (no doubt due to the
new competition they are facing). IAAC revenues are down as
the result of competition in pricing, but this was expected.
IAAC income, however, is what helps keep membership dues level
over long periods.
7. Coastal Market Issue. We discussed IIABNY’s
testimony at the Senate’s coastal market hearing in
Suffolk County. We feel we were able to diffuse the ongoing
Insurance Dept. perception that there is broad market availability
at affordable prices. Several Senate panel members asked specific
questions and we believe some action might be taken in 2008,
such as a change in the 4% cancellation allowance restricting
homeowner policy cancellations and non-renewals by rating
territory.
8. Workers Compensation Reform. IIABNY is
concerned with the aggregate trust fund which needs to be
fixed. We’ve had discussions with the Workers Comp.
Board over the out-of-state employer situation and expect
this will be mitigated by an interpretation of the WCB to
again recognize the All-states endorsement as covering out-of-state
employer responsibilities for other than their NY domiciled
employees or those working regularly in the state. The assessment
issue is also getting a lot of attention from agents because
the State Fund’s assessment charge is so much lower
than that of private insurers and the Association will look
into how that unfair advantage can be rectified.
9. Labor Law Sections 240 & 241. The
BBCNY’s lawsuit over this law (as being unconstitutional
for denial of employers’ right to defend these cases)
is going to the appeals court. IIABNY has been financially
supporting this cause.
continued below...
10. Compensation Disclosure.
The Ins. Dept. has drafted a regulation and we expect to soon
have an opportunity to comment on it. Supt. Dinallo wants our
input on it. He will also attend our 2008 L-Day Conference.
11. NY First Coalition. A meeting to be held
December 3rd will include a discussion whether to reach out
to the coastal market situation.
12. 2008 Legislative Session is expected to
be active with issues revolving around ‘Troopergate”
and its outfall that brought state government to a standstill
this fall, NYPIUA permanency, rating territory cancellations
and other cancellation restrictions being a few of them.
13. E&S Export List Expansion is another
item being discussed along with reformation of the broker statement
requirement to a tri-annual basis.
14. Late Notice of Claim Denials. IIABNY had
good feedback from many of the insurers contacted with a request
that they use this reason for denying claims more judiciously
than in the past. We reminded them of our pressure to defeat
the original legislation that would also have opened them up
a third party right to declaratory action prior to suing a policyholder.
We will propose a new bill addressing only late notice.
15. 2008 Legislative Position Paper has been
published and approved. L-Day is scheduled for Wednesday,
January 23rd due to other conflicts with the Legislature.
16. Financial Services Regulation. We will
seek a position with a task force appointed by the governor
to study the integration of insurance and banking regulation
as has been done in states like Florida. Presently, most of
the members are from insurance companies and banks and we will
promote a place for agents there, too.
17. Monoline Worker Compensation. The Association
is replacing the previous monoline Workers Compensation program
with a new supplier.
Respectfully submitted,
Russ Vollmer
Regional Director
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