NAIC May Craft A CLUE Restrictions Law

By Steve Tuckey

NU Online News Service, Dec. 7, 3:28 p.m. EST, New Orleans?A National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners panel will explore developing a model law to regulate use of claims history data bases for rating applicants and writing homeowners insurance.[@@]

Oregon applicants administrator Joel Ario announced the move at a session of the Market Regulation Committee yesterday during NAIC's winter meeting here. His words surprised industry representatives who had not prepared comments on the matter.

Mr. Ario said he might prepare a draft model for discussion at the spring meeting in March, but stressed that no decision has been made on whether or not to go forward with the process.

For the past several years consumer representatives and real estate interests have raised questions about data bases such as Choicepoint's Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. They accuse CLUE of using criteria of questionable relevance in both underwriting and rating home insurance.

Last fall members of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators considered one such model law proposal, but put it off pending further revisions for discussion at their spring meeting.

At the time industry representatives asserted the proposed bill went beyond regulating use of the data bases and severely limited their use of loss history in underwriting and rating homeowners insurance.

"The uses of the data base do get you into questions of rating and underwriting," Mr. Ario said.

Backers of the model said that with more than 30 states either having imposed regulation or considering doing so, the time was ripe to propose model legislation to provide the uniformity the industry has been crying out for in recent years.

Mr. Ario said one issue sure to be raised is that of the use of mere inquiries to insurance agents on loss history records.

"Beyond that, you get into more controversy about what kind of entries should or should not be used in the data base," Mr. Ario said.

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NAIC May Craft A CLUE Restrictions Law

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