Reinsurance Focus

Following are legislative developments relevant to state captive insurance laws:

• The Montana State Auditor requested House Bill No. 160, which was adopted by the Montana legislature to revise captive insurance laws, authorize the Insurance Commissioner to waive RBC reports for captive risk retention groups, clarify collection of the premium tax, change the calculation of the tax on direct premiums, revise investment requires for captive insurers, and expand the scope of laws applicable to captive insurance companies. The effective date of the legislation is July 1, 2009.
• SP 520 has been introduced in the Maine Senate, which amends the State's laws regulating captive insurance companies to encourage the formation of new captive insurance companies in the State. The amendments are modeled after laws relating to captive insurance companies in Vermont. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Insurance and Financial Services.

Following are legislative and regulatory developments relevant to reinsurance:

• Senate Bill No. 442 has been introduced in the Maine Senate to repeal the Maine Individual Reinsurance Association and enact the Health Insurance Individual Small Group Reinsurance Fund to provide reimbursement of certain high-cost claims for persons covered under individual and small group health plans.
• North Dakota SB 2181 was recently signed into law. The law amends and reenacts portions of N.D. Code § 26.1-06.1-31, which deals with reductions in amounts recoverable by liquidators from reinsurers.

There are three Congressional bills of interest:

• H.R. 1583 proposes to repeal the insurance industry's antitrust exemption through amendment of the McCarran-Ferguson Act. The bill has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on Energy and Commerce, and Financial Services
• H.R. 83 (referred to the Committee on Financial Services) (bill text and bill summary) proposes a program to provide reinsurance for State natural catastrophe insurance programs, and S. 505 (referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs) proposes the establishment of a National Catastrophe Risks Consortium and a National Homeowners' Insurance Stabilization Program.

This post written by Karen Benson.