George Dale, longtime Mississippi insurance
commissioner, has been added as a speaker at the AAIS Main Event
conference, April 20-22 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Dale, noted for speaking frankly, won eight
consecutive terms and was the nation's longest-serving insurance
commissioner before leaving office in 2007. At the Main Event, he will
speak on current political issues facing insurers. His remarks will
serve as a lead-in to a panel discussion featuring four company CEOs.
There are still spaces available for the Main Event
and the conference hotel.
For a detailed description of the meeting and
its social events,
To register ,
To reserve a room at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club,
A countrywide bulletin was recently issued to all AAIS
member companies clarifying AAIS's position regarding references in
policy forms to findings of bad faith on the part of the insurer.
Questions about this have arisen in the wake of two developments:
-
A ballot measure passed in Washington state
requires first-party claimants to provide notice to the insurer and
the Washington insurance commissioner at least 20 days before filing
suit over a claim.
-
The New York Court of Appeals recently ruled
that commercial property owners can assert consequential damages
against insurance companies that breach their contracts.
Indirectly, those developments have prompted
questions to AAIS asking whether policy forms should explicitly
reference an insurer's obligations in the event it is deemed to be
guilty of bad faith or misconduct in the handling of a claim.
AAIS forms and
endorsements only address conditions relating to proper claims
procedures. Bad faith actions, such as unreasonable denial of a
claim, generally are initiated by alleged improper or incomplete
claim handling. As a general practice AAIS forms and endorsements do
not include policy language that addresses improper claim handling.
A
law recently enacted in New York state
requires insurers writing homeowners and
dwelling property insurance to include a notice
related to flood insurance whenever such a
policy is renewed.
Using language originally
promulgated in 1994, the standard notice states that the policy does
not cover losses due to flood or mudslide, and that such coverage can be
purchased from the National Flood Insurance Program. Previously, this
notice only had to be given when a policy first came into force; now it
must be provided upon every renewal.
A recent
law in West Virginia requires property insurers, in the event of a
total loss to an insured structure, to notify the insured and the
municipality and county where the structure is located of any coverage
under the policy for the removal of damaged property.
The notice is required within 10 days of receiving a
claim. It must detail the terms and limits of coverage for securing,
cleanup, and removal of damaged property, plus any time limitations
imposed on the insured for doing so.
A March
bulletin from the
Mississippi Insurance Department withdraws a request for homeowners
claims data that was discussed in a previous
Advisory.
The latest bulletin says that the information
previously requested may not provide the department with all the
information it needs to determine how insurance companies were handling
claims. The department says that a new bulletin will be issued later
indicating what information is desired and how it should be provided.
Insurers that write liability coverage are invited
to participate in a special AAIS research study regarding the frequency
and severity of claims for personal injury, such as libel, slander, and
violation of privacy.
In particular, carriers are asked to respond to a
voluntary call for personal injury claims data from 2002 through 2006.
Information and instructions are available in a Microsoft Word
document, and a
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet
is provided for responding to the data call.
The study seeks to determine how the frequency and
severity of personal injury claims have been affected by:
-
The growing use of e-mail, blogs, "gripe sites,"
networking sites, picture/video phones, and other forms of
electronic communication; and
-
The growing incidence of "cyberbullying" and
other offensive behaviors associated with these communications.
All carriers that write personal injury coverage can
participate, whether they are AAIS members or not. Companies that
provide data will receive a report with the aggregate results, plus
analysis.
If you have questions about the study, contact Greg
Jaynes, director of actuarial services, at
gregj@AAISonline.com, or Larry
Thill, manager of data management, at
larryt@AAISonline.com.
