Orlando, Fla.–Efforts to win regulator support for a controversial national catastrophe insurance program for big disasters were put on hold here after the proposal drew objections.

The National Conference of Insurance Commissioners decided to delay any preliminary approval of the natural mega-catastrophe risk cover program concept for a few weeks while the group weighed new objections to the controversial plan.

Still, Florida Commissioner Kevin McCarty, chair of the NAIC Natural Catastrophe Working Group and prime author of the plan, said he was pleased with its progress.

However, he took exception to those who started calling it a “white paper” with the implication that it is something to be read and then put on the shelf for future reference rather than presented in detail to Congress at some date in the near future for enactment.

Since the program was first announced last December, the most controversial component of it–the mandated all-perils property owners policy that would for the first time have carriers cover flood risk–has been removed.

Mr. McCarty said the program would try to make consumers become knowledgeable about what the insurance they are purchasing provides in terms of coverage against flooding, which is normally exempted.

He noted that opinion was divided at Saturday's session at the spring NAIC meeting here as to just how big a club the government should wield in ensuring homeowners have flood coverage.

The latest draft includes a checklist agents would have to run down with applicants to ensure they understand what flood coverage they are buying and to have a comprehensive policy available for them to purchase.

But he declined to term it a “mandated offer,” as did Rey Becker, a Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) representative, who expressed his concerns about that aspect of the program.

He felt such a checklist could make agents and carriers liable for errors and omissions, as well as placing a new records retention burden on them in future years.

The plan also includes creation of state and federal catastrophe funds to back up mega-catastrophe risk, which all of the p-c trade associations have either opposed or voiced no position on, reflecting the division among the giant players in the sector.

At the hearing Saturday, Florida State Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, former president of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators, said he was concerned about whether there should be one attachment point throughout the country for state fund coverage or whether it should vary to garner support from smaller and less disaster-prone states.

Mr. Geller also expressed concern that the proposed national advisory committee that would set premiums that companies would pay to take part in any national fund had no involvement from any state legislators.

Mr. McCarty said he hoped to have a vote of the working group within the next month after consideration of the new objections after which the program would be sent to the parent Property-Casualty Committee at the June summer meeting.

Special Reports /

NAIC Slows Action On Disaster Program

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