Ohio Aids 20, Other States Hold Back

February 25, 2009 at 07:00 PM
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The Ohio Department of Insurance has granted 20 of 20 requests for permission to use accounting practices that vary from the standard statutory accounting practices, officials say.

The Ohio department will make details about the permitted practices requests after the March 1 statutory financial statement filing deadline, officials say.

In Nebraska, just one company has asked for capital and surplus relief, and it will receive some relief, Nebraska Director Ann Frohman says.

Until the financial statements are filed and made public, Frohman faces limits on what she can say.

But the relief request was not associated with deferred tax assets, and it did involve work under way at the National Association of Insurance Commissioner's Life & Health Actuarial Task Force, Frohman says.

Ken Schrad, a spokesman for the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the parent of the Virginia Bureau of Insurance, says it is his understanding that the bureau has not issued any permitted practices relief and does not intend to do so.

In a bulletin issued Monday, Virginia officials say the insurance bureau will be "closely monitoring Footnote #1 of the filed annual statements."

The footnote discloses variations from the NAIC's accounting practices and procedures manual.

The disclosure "shall include a description of the accounting practice, a statement that the accounting practice differs from NAIC statutory accounting practices and procedures, and the monetary effect on net income and statutory surplus as a result of using an accounting practice that differs from NAIC statutory accounting practices and procedures," officials say.

"If an insurer's risk-based capital would have triggered a regulatory event had it not used a prescribed or permitted accounting practice, that fact should be disclosed in the annual statement," officials say.

If the permitted practice is deemed material, then the practice may not be allowed and the insurer could be required to refile its annual statement, officials say.

Domestic insurers have not filed requests for permitted practices in California, says department spokesman Molly DeFrank.

If an insurer filed such a request, the department would look at the appropriateness of the request and whether documentation indicated that the proposed practice is "defensible and makes good economic sense," DeFrank says.

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