State Lawmakers Question Insurer Life Policy Buyout Offers

The list of groups representing insurers in connection with their authority to make the short-term cash surrender value enhancement offers includes the American Council of Life Insurers.

Karen Melchert, an ACLI representative, said during an online NCOIL committee meeting in June, that the ACLI believes any discussions of changes in rules for cash surrender value enhancements should start with the Life Actuarial Task Force at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Life settlement companies and their trade group, the Life Insurance Settlement Association, have objected to the policy buyout offers. They see a life insurer's temporary buyout offer as a kind of life settlement offer that, up until now, has existed outside the scope of the laws and regulations that apply to life settlement companies.

Other NCOIL Meeting Happenings

Also at the NCOIL meeting:

• Dean Cameron, the Idaho insurance director and president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, gave a luncheon keynote address at the meeting Friday. He asked state lawmakers to help state regulators defend federal encroachment on state insurance regulators' turf and to, for example, help state regulators defend insurers' ability to pay commissions to sellers of fixed annuities.

• Representatives from two groups that have been archrivals, Finseca and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, joined with each other, and the American Council of Life Insurers, to ask for NCOIL backing for a resolution regarding recruit, retention and diversity in the life insurance agent profession.

The resolution, which starts on page 184 in the NCOIL summer meeting packet, calls for state lawmakers to work with state insurance regulators to ease barriers to the entry of new agents, such as in-person exam requirements and requirements that licensing exam candidates take certain types of classes. NCOIL adopted the resolution Saturday.

• NCOIL members heard presentations from witnesses who support and oppose efforts to add biopsy gene sequencing benefits mandates to health insurance benefits requirements. State lawmakers noted that added state-level mandates are often ineffective because the employers that still have fully insured plans respond to state-level mandates by adopting self-insured health plans. The self-insured health plans are subject only to federal benefit mandates.

(Image: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)