Market Data Project Cost Worries Insurers

By Jim Connolly, NU Life-Health Edition Senior Editor

NU Online News Service Aug. 27, 10:30 a.m. EST? A data collection pilot project that could help regulators target market conduct exams is still raising cost-benefit concerns among insurers.

Initial reaction to an interim meeting held in Chicago Aug. 22-23 by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., found that while a large life insurer such as Metropolitan Life Inc., New York, is backing the project, property-casualty insurers are less sure.

In a survey of 62 companies conducted by a joint property-casualty trade group that includes the Alliance of American Insurers, Downers Grove, Ill.; the American Insurance Association, Washington; the National Association of Independent Insurers, Des Plaines, Ill.; and the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, Indianapolis; cost was found to be a major concern.

Responses from the joint group's survey found that the cost per company would range between $10,000 to $25,000, according to Lenore Marema, vice president-legal and regulatory affairs with the Alliance, one of the four trade groups working on the joint group. Full details of the survey's findings are due out today.

The responses, according to Ms. Marema, did not vary by premium volume, so it is not a big company, small company issue.

What is important to companies, she continued, is that the cost to some roughly 800 companies be justified by benefits such as focusing resources on targeted rather than on comprehensive exams.

One positive development from the interim meeting in Chicago that she noted was the extension of time for submitting data from 45 days to 90 days.

The property-casualty industry will begin data gathering from Jan.-June 2003 and will submit reports to all states in the pilot project by September 2003, Ms. Marema explained. A report will then be developed and presented by regulators by December 2003, she said.

The life insurance industry will report first on data from Jan.-June 2002 with a year-end 2002 report anticipated, said Ann Henstrand, a vice president of government affairs with MetLife Inc., New York.

"Very real progress was made at the meeting," she added.

The extension of the deadline to 90 days allows companies to prepare data but not pull IT resources from other projects, she said.

Ms. Henstrand also cited practical points such as putting spread sheets companies would need to use on the NAIC Web site, www.naic.org, and designating a specific person at each participating insurance department as the contact on the pilot for that state.

For a company, like MetLife, according to Ms. Henstrand, the success of streamlining the market conduct exam process is important because it saves time, money and resources. Given its size, Met Life is the subject of a number of exams and requests can differ, increasing costs, she said.

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Market Data Project Cost Worries Insurers

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