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By Steve Tuckey, NU
Online News Service, Dec. 7, 2004, New Orleans
- A National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners panel will explore
developing a model law to regulate use of claims history data bases for
rating applicants and writing homeowners insurance.
Oregon
applicants administrator Joel Ario announced the move at a session of
the Market Regulation Committee yesterday during NAIC's winter meeting
here. His words surprised industry representatives who had not prepared
comments on the matter.
Mr.
Ario said he might prepare a draft model for discussion at the spring
meeting in March, but stressed that no decision has been made on whether
or not to go forward with the process.
For
the past several years consumer representatives and real estate
interests have raised questions about data bases such as Choicepoint's
Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. They accuse CLUE of using
criteria of questionable relevance in both underwriting and rating home
insurance.
Last
fall members of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators
considered one such model law proposal, but put it off pending further
revisions for discussion at their spring meeting.
At
the time industry representatives asserted the proposed bill went beyond
regulating use of the data bases and severely limited their use of loss
history in underwriting and rating homeowners insurance.
"The
uses of the data base do get you into questions of rating and
underwriting," Mr. Ario said.
Backers
of the model said that with more than 30 states either having imposed
regulation or considering doing so, the time was ripe to propose model
legislation to provide the uniformity the industry has been crying out
for in recent years.
Mr.
Ario said one issue sure to be raised is that of the use of mere
inquiries to insurance agents on loss history records.
"Beyond
that, you get into more controversy about what kind of entries should or
should not be used in the data base," Mr. Ario said. |