Electronic Rate & Form Filing Going Gangbusters, NAIC Says
Insurers use of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners electronic filing systemcalled the System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing, or SERFFcontinues to soar and is on target to meet NAICs 2003 filing goals, according to state regulators attending the NAICs winter meeting in Anaheim, Calif.
First introduced in 2001, SERFF has been growing consistently, according to regulators.
The SERFF board of directors announced at the NAIC winter meeting that the e-filing program is in production in 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
Currently, 50 jurisdictions accept property-casualty filings, while 48 states accept life filings and 41 states accept health filings, the board directors announced.
NAIC's goal is to have all states accept all rate-and-form filings through SERFF for all lines of insurance and all filing types.
The directors also said that by the end of last month, 70,068 filings had been processed, which meets the SERFF boards filing goals for 2003. There are currently 207 insurer groups and 1,014 individual companies that use SERFF.
Additionally, the board reported at the meeting that the work on e-filings programming interface is "progressing rapidly," and that a pilot with seven states and 10 insurer groups is also moving ahead well.
Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Mike Pickens, the departing president of the Kansas City, Mo.-based NAIC, told National Underwriter that SERFF is not only more cost-effective than "antiquated" filing methods, but it also improves accuracy and facilitates communications between states and insurers through status tracking, reports and workflow management.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, December 19, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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