No. CS/CS/HB 1263
Filed under Insurance.
Office of Insurance Regulation; Providing that the Office of Insurance Regulation is responsible for all activities concerning entities under its jurisdiction; authorizing the Department of Financial Services and the office to issue and deliver cease and desist orders for certain activities; authorizing the department and the office to seek an injunction for enforcement of such order; removing a provision authorizing the Financial Services Commission to adopt the Market Conduct Examiners Handbook; requiring the Department of Law Enforcement to accept and process fingerprints taken of certain persons; requiring the Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct certain background checks; authorizing the Department of Law Enforcement to exchange certain records with the office; requiring certain non-United States-based insurance holding company systems to file a group capital calculation report, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDOfficers, directors, trustees, and other key managers at almost every kind of licensed insurance entity must now submit fingerprints. The Department of Law Enforcement and FBI run state and federal background checks, and each person, not the company, pays the processing fee.
Managing a reciprocal insurer as its attorney in fact now requires state registration, with no fee to register or renew. The office can deny, suspend, or revoke that registration, and can fine violators up to $250,000, or $1 million during a declared emergency.
Insurer financial reporting is narrowed and sped up: instead of annual data from a dozen insurance lines, only private passenger auto insurers must report, but monthly, starting in 2027. The old exemption for insurers with a tiny market share is deleted outright.
The office and department gain new power to issue cease-and-desist orders, and seek injunctions, against unlicensed insurance activity. Meanwhile, the yearly requirement that insurers report data on assignment-of-benefits claims is repealed entirely, with nothing put in its place.
AIAnyone acting as the attorney in fact managing a reciprocal insurer must first obtain a registration from the Office of Insurance Regulation. The office may deny, suspend, or revoke that registration for cause, and may fine violators instead of suspending them.
AIThe Department of Law Enforcement must accept and process fingerprints from officers, directors, trustees, and other key managers across nearly every entity type licensed under the insurance code, from insurers to administrators to viatical settlement providers. The FBI runs a matching federal background check.
AIStarting in 2027, only insurers writing private passenger automobile coverage must file the detailed experience report, and they must file it every month instead of annually. Insurers writing the many other lines the old law covered, such as homeowners, workers' comp, and general liability, no longer file this report at all.
AIThe ultimate controlling person of an insurer that is part of a large or internationally active insurance holding company group must file an annual group capital calculation report with the office, using NAIC-defined methodology, unless a specific exemption applies.
AIIf the department or office has probable cause that someone is conducting insurance business without the required license, registration, or certificate of authority, either agency may issue a cease-and-desist order, reaching not just that person but anyone who aids or abets the violation, and may go to court for an injunction to enforce it.
AIThe office no longer has to collect yearly data from insurers on residential and commercial property claims paid under an assignment-of-benefits agreement, and the Financial Services Commission no longer has to adopt a rule listing what that data must include. Nothing replaces this reporting duty.
AIThe office still sets a minimum wind-mitigation discount insurers must offer for fortified construction and roofing, but that minimum is now a floor, not a ceiling: an insurer may seek approval for additional, actuarially justified credits above what the office calculated.
AIThe office must contract with a state university to build and run a statewide database of hurricane-mitigation inspection results. Beginning in 2027, every insurer must electronically file each policyholder's mitigation verification form into that database within 15 business days of receiving it.