State Houses '02 Insurance Focus Was Auto, Comp

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service, Feb. 26, 11:41 a.m.EST?The majority of state laws enacted to regulateproperty-casualty insurance last year focused again on theautomobile and worker's compensation segments, an industry tradegroup reported yesterday.

The analysis of trends in new state insurance legislation for2002 was released by the National Association of Mutual InsuranceCompanies in Indianapolis, Ind. Officials said they had seen thesame focus in 2001 and expected it to continue this year.

NAMIC's summary, which was posted online, involved 239 lawspassed in 44 states.

Roger Schmelzer, NAMIC vice president-regulatory affairs said,the association identified 60 new auto insurance laws as the singlelargest issue trend among p-c-related laws. The survey alsoidentifies 45 new workers' compensation laws, making this thesecond most common issue trend.

The two categories account for nearly half of the new p-c lawscovered in the report and Ken Marshall, industry knowledge managerfor NAMIC, said the trends are very similar to last year.

This year, "based on what we've seen in the past, and thelegislation introduced so far this year, we don't anticipate thosetwo will change [position]," Mr. Marshall said.

The two areas, he explained, are "magnets for legislation andregulatory proposals."

Mr. Marshall said NAMIC "did pick up on a couple of additionaltrends that were rather notable, comparatively speaking." He citednew laws pertaining to licensing, insurance scoring, financialstandards regulation, investment tax credits and rate and formrequirements.

Because the auto legislation category stands out so much, Mr.Marshall said the study has made a sub-category of trafficsafety.

He said the section notes laws pertaining to driving under theinfluence standards, seatbelt requirements, graduated driverlicense standards for youth and speeding.

Additionally, the association had noticed legislation requiringcarriers to provide regulators with more data on auto accidents.Other legislation he said involved "tweaking existing laws withadditional prohibitions, [setting] prohibitions or conditions onadverse underwriting decisions" as well as statutes coveringsalvage vehicle titles, and insurance coverage that auto dealersneed during test rides.

California enacted the greatest number of new laws in the surveywith 15. Florida had 12.

Arizona and Colorado approved 11 each. Washington passed 10 newlaws.

Minnesota and Oklahoma each approved nine new p-c laws, NAMICsaid.

The organization found that there were no new significant p-claws approved in Indiana last year. Montana and Ohio passed justone new significant p-c law each. Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii,Mississippi, New Jersey and Wyoming each enacted only two new laws,NAMIC said.

In addition to auto and workers comp, the survey identified 22distinct issue trends. Among them:

? 18 licensure laws enacted in 15 states,

? 12 insurance scoring laws enacted in 11 states,

? 10 financial regulation laws enacted in 8 states,

? 10 laws concerning investment tax credits enacted in 7 states,and

? 10 laws regulating rates and forms enacted in 9 states.

NAMIC said its Survey of 2002 State Insurance Laws identified anumber of other "important new law issue trends"?including statebuilding codes, captive insurers, electronic commerce, fraud, mold,premium finance arrangements, privacy/disclosure, tax issues,records retention, structured settlements, telephone marketing,unfair trade practices, uniform arbitration, and uniform commercialcode changes.

The report has been published for the last four years. NAMICsaid the full report is a value-added service available to itsmembers.

A summary of NAMIC's 2002 Survey of New State Insurance Laws isavailable to the public as a featured link at NAMIC Online athttp://www.namic.org/reghelpcenter/NewLaws02.asp.

Mr. Schmelzer said the report has shown "consistent Web trafficpopularity over the past three years. He said it is "comprehensiveand features a complete summary analysis of the major new lawtrends and separate state and issue specific listings withdescriptions and hot links to the complete text of each newmeasure."

NAMIC is a national trade association that claims more than1,200 member companies that underwrite 40 percent ($123.3 billion)of the p-c insurance premium in the United States.