As of Tuesday, Aug. 14, the NAIC Executive Committee had reinstated the Viatical Settlement Working Group. Julie Mix McPeak, chair of Life (A) and Annuities Committee reprotedly statedd that the group got the resources needed to do take action on the group'sagenda.
According to an NAIC spokesperson: On Sunday, Aug. 12, the Executive Committee voted to have the Committee discontinue work on the 2012 charge related to the work of the Viatical Settlements Working Group, citing the need to prioritize resources. Following that, the Life Insurance Committee at its meeting, also on Sunday, Aug. 12, disbanded the working group. However, several states have now committed additional staff resources to continue the Working Group's efforts. At the Executive Committee and Plenary meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 14, a motion was adopted to reinstate the charge and the Viatical Settlements Working Group.
This is the charge:
Appoint a Viatical Settlements (A) Working Group to review and consider revisions to the Viatical Settlements Model Regulation (#698) for consistency with the 2007 revisions made to the Viatical Settlements Model Act (#697), including reviewing and considering revisions to or replacement of, as appropriate, Appendix A – Informational Brochure.
The NAIC's Executive Committee terminated the NAIC's "Viatical Settlement Working Group"(VSWG) at its Summer National Meeting in Atlanta last weekend and removed the charge of the group.
The VSWG was under the umbrella of the NAIC's Life and Annuities (A) Committee. The Chair of the A Committee, Julie Mix McPeak, said there were lot of issues that the A Committee is working on and had expressed concern about having the time and resources to forge ahead with the working group.
This suits the life settlement industry just fine.
In its time, the VSWG did not have any conference calls or meetings, nor did it communicate with regulators or interested parties for four months. Some argue there is no need for the group to exist any longer except as a springboard from which to criticize the viatical industry, which started as a way to provide AIDS sufferers with life settlements they could use while still alive, taken as a portion of their life insurance policies. The settlement process had created a shadow industry of illegal transactions.
On August 1, with less than two weeks to go before the national NAIC meeting held last weekend in Atlanta, the VSWG send out a memo which was to be the basis of the VSWG meeting scheduled for August 11. This meeting reportedly lasted an hour with the chair of the committee and no action was taken, once again. The VSWG solicited interested parties to submit additional comments, said one of those parties.
Over the course of 20-plus months, there were two brief meetings of the VSWG, three solicitations for comments and no actions taken.
