The following is a summary of the issues being addressed by IIABNY on behalf of our membership and the general public.

Coastal Insurance. The Association is taking a multi-step approach to the coastal market situation that includes: regulatory reform to improve the climate for insurers and allow for the use of catastrophe modeling for rating purposes, legislative changes to make alternate markets more available, C-Map expansion (use of HO-3-like wrap policies) and improvements, permanency of the FAIR Plan, streamlining of rate review processes and some means of standardizing wind deductible triggers.

Broker Compensation Disclosure. The Association’s board has approved a resolution calling for voluntary disclosure by agents and brokers. (We prefer voluntary disclosure at the request of a customer to mandatory disclosure to everyone.) Should the Insurance Dept. prepare a regulation on this issue, the Association has prepared suggested disclosure language to recommend. IIABNY continues to be the only producer organization regularly testifying at public hearings on this issue. IIABNY will also review current and new alternative profit-sharing compensation arrangements to determine their impact on agents.

Workers Compensation. With respect to the NY Workers Compensation Law Reform Act of 2007, IIABNY has prepared a white paper that outlines all the changes. This document can be accessed on the Research Page of IIABNY’s website: www.iiabny.org. We continue to meet with the Workers Compensation Board about the situation for out-of-state employees who travel into NY for meetings, seminars, etc. IIABNY is also looking into the State Fund’s NY Assessment being lower than that of private carriers, the Fund’s current 30-day advance notice requirement when a policyholder wants to change insurers and whether the Fund can be authorized to accept ACORD forms instead of their own..

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Auto Fraud. IIABNY is working with carriers and via the NY First Auto Fraud Coalition to broker a consensus between the Senate and Assembly about meaningful auto fraud legislation. So far, a result has been legislation enacted to de-certify health insurance providers who engage in fraud. (Auto insurance fraud adds an average of $124 a year to the premium for each NY insured vehicle.)

Labor Law Reform. IIABNY continues to support the Businesses for a Better NY’s efforts at repealing the “no defense” provision in the current law. Currently, this effort, in the form of a dismissed lawsuit, is being appealed in the US Court of Appeals, 2md Circuit. There has been no legislative action on amending the law.

Late Notice of Claims. IIABNY is drafting suggested legislation to define under what circumstances a claim can be denied by an insurer for late notice – essentially requiring the insurer to specifically demonstrate that the late notice was prejudicial to the insurer. The Association board adopted a policy statement on this issue and the statement can be viewed on IIABNY’s Leadership page at www.iiabny.org. Our statement has been distributed to the top 25 insurers in NY urging voluntary adoption of the suggested standards until a permanent solution is found. IIABNY has on several occasions been successful in having individual cases of late notice denials revered by the carrier involved.

Other Issues.

• The NY Assembly has struck out the governor’s proposal to increase the $5 fee for each insured vehicle to $20 per vehicle.
• Commercial De-regulation is resurfacing again. This is an effort to free commercial lines of insurance from much of the current regulations which could also put an end to many of the current protections in the current system. IIABNY will be watching this issue very closely.
• Wrap-Up insurance for major construction jobs is also resurfacing and with the contractors’ insurance situation being what it is today, this may well have some momentum this time and may, indeed, be the reason this is becoming a current topic.
• Commercial loss runs are now being centrally reported much as personal lines claims are and some are currently available via lossruns.com.

Respectfully submitted,
Russ Vollmer
Tom Crowley
Regional Directors