The International Center for Captive Insurance Education said the deadline is Tuesday for enrollment in a Web conference on use of risk retention groups under the federal Liability Risk Retention Act (LRRA) and related issues.

Instructors are risk retention group experts Jon Harkavy and Stephanie Mapes, with guest instructor Skip Myers, counsel for the National Risk Retention Association, ICCIE said. Web conference dates are Apr. 1, 8 and 15. Conference time is 2:30-3:45 p.m. EDT.

The online courses will explore the risk retention group concept, under what circumstances the RRG structure should be considered, why it works, and why RRGs should not be subject to traditional insurance regulation.

RRGs enjoy a strong advantage over traditional insurance carriers, in that the LRRA allows them to write direct without multistate licensing, ICCIE said.

Risk retention groups do most, if not all of their business in states other than their state of domicile. Except for enumerated exceptions, the nondomiciliary states must rely on the charter state to properly regulate the group and protect the policyholder interests.

The LRRA is a powerful exception to the McCarran-Ferguson Act, in that it preempts all regulation outside of the state of domicile except for limited exceptions enumerated in the LRRA. This course will examine the exceptions, ICCIE said.

In its 2005 report to Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) asked whether the LRRA governance requirements, coupled with the partial preemption from state insurance regulation, have left risk retention groups vulnerable to misgovernance.

The Web session will not only address this ongoing debate but will explore ways in which nondomiciliary states are abusing risk retention groups and clearly exceeding their limited empowerment under the LRRA–and potential RRG responses to nondomiciliary state overreaching, the ICCIE said.

The group said state regulatory abuses of the risk retention group law include:

o Registration requirements and waiting periods beyond the pure notice filing contemplated by the LRRA.

o Registration fees, annual filing fees, and other miscellaneous fees and taxes charged.

o Rate review and/or local capital requirements enforced under the guise of determining whether a risk retention group is in “hazardous financial condition.”

o The sometimes gaping hole left under the financial responsibility exception to the LRRA preemption, as balanced by the anti-discrimination provisions of the act.

o The recent medical malpractice closed claim reporting battles.

ICCIE said the session carries five CPE credits and registration is online at www.iccie.org.

Special Reports /

ICCIE RRG Web Course Enrollment Deadline Nears

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