CDS '05 – Tampa, Florida

The CDS kicked off with the ever popular Commissioners Roundtable, where a panel of insurance commissioners discussed hot issues of the day. Taking part in the '05 Roundtable were Walter Bell, Alabama's insurance administrator, Commissioner George Dale of the Mississippi Insurance Department, M. Diane Koken, commissioner in Pennsylvania (and this year's NAIC president), and Kevin McCarty, director of the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

The opening session on day two featured an insightful discussion of Market Analysis and whether it is Just Another Fancy Phrase or the New Face of State Insurance Regulation.

The CDS also included a series of individual breakout session hosted by the following seven sections. Scroll down or use the links below to see a description of the breakout session by section.

• Consumer Services Section
• Enforcement & Compliance Section
• Financial Section
• Life & Health Section
• Market Conduct Section
• Producer Licensing Section
• Property and Casualty Section

The CDS also featured a Round Robin Discussion session and wrapped it all up with three joint sessions that covered topics applicable to many different areas of regulation.

IRES also honored several members during the CDS, specifically:

• IRES members who had met the rigorous requirements for its two professional designations were recognized.

• The Al Greer Award was awarded to Dale Emerson, assistant deputy director of the Illinois Department of Insurance

• The Schrader Nelson Award for the best article in the Society's newsletter, The Regulator, was awarded to Mark Gardner of the California Department of Insurance for his article "Spitzer Probe: What are Lessons for Regulators?" under the pen name Karl LaFong which appeared in the January 2005 issue.

• The President's Award was presented to Douglas A. Freeman, CIE, for his outstanding service to IRES.

• The traditional crystal gavel was presented to outgoing president Kirk Yeager by the incoming president, Stephen E. King.

Career Development Sessions

Consumer Services Section

• Let's Get it Right – Uniform Complaint Coding – Discussed various ways to strive for uniformity in coding as this information is utilized in market analysis, I-Site and possible multistate exams. This session also discussed the current NAIC White Paper.

• Service Contracts: Insurance, Warranty or Both? – Covered how different states regulate them, how complaints and inquiries are handled, who needs to be licensed, and provided an overview of the issues.

• Senior Citizen Insurance Scams, Abuses and Problems – Identified insurance problems that affect senior citizens and discussed ways to help them through laws, regulation, enforcement and education.

• Do More With Less Via Technology – Demonstrated and discussed the New York State Insurance Department's automated Prompt Pay Complaint Handling System and other upgrades and future enhancements to the department's current complaint-handling information system.

Enforcement & Compliance Section

• Reducing the Fear Factor – Focused on disaster recovery planning and how to identify if your company or agency is adequately protected, and prepared to continue operations and to provide customer service, in the event of a disaster.

• To Have and to Hold – Explored the issue of privacy during fraud investigations by looking at information, documentation and evidence that you have versus what you should disclose, or hold. This session also provided an overview of what state and federal laws are relevant to collection and disclosure and if immunity always protects disclosure and release?

• Are You Too Healthy NOT to Work? – Focused on fraudulent claims and other misconduct in disability insurance, including actual cases, surveillance video, bogus claim forms and other material uncovered during exams.

• What's a Regulator to Do? – Explored the why's and how's of conducting an agency examination and featured what the regulator should consider reviewing in regards to the overall scope of the examination, including a work list such as agency operations, licensing and appointments.

Financial Section

• What's in Your Toolkit? – Provided an update on tools available to regulators from its rapidly expanding database, including some of the advanced reporting features offered in NAIC's I-Site that are often underutilized.

• Get Smart – Discussed the Smart Act, whether it will help move us into a more uniform and competitive regulatory environment, and it's likely impact on financial and market conduct examinations.

• Assessing Risk in a Post Sarbanes-Oxley World – Discussed the risk-assessment and -management procedures from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that will help insurance regulators conduct the examinations of tomorrow, what will these exams look like and whether examiners are up to the task.

• Do They or Don't They? – Featured a case study to help regulators determine when a company may be using finite reinsurance products improperly.

Life & Health Section

• Latest on Market Analysis and Market Conduct Annual Statement – Provided a synopsis of the events and changes that have been occurring for market analysis and the market conduct annual statement including changes that are to be implemented and/or are being discussed in NAIC working groups.

• Self-Evaluations in the Health Industry – Examined the growing use of self-evaluations (self-audits) and voluntary accreditation programs, such as the National Council on Quality Assurance (NCQA). This session also explored how these types of programs can be potential sources of useful information for market conduct analysts and examiners.

• Sharing the Cost – Provided an overview of the types of consumer-directed health plans (CDHP), formal guidelines for these plans and the impact they'll have on insurers, employers and consumers.

• Security Rule: What's the Connection with the HIPAA Privacy Rule? – Provided an overview of recent HIPAA security standards for electronic protected health information (EPHI), why they were implemented, who must comply and how they will affect market conduct examinations.

Market Conduct Section

• The Continuum of Market Regulation Activities – Explored the newest buzz words for the market conduct/market regulation arena including what are they, how do they fit in with what we do today, and how will these activities be viewed in the future.

• Best Practices and Self-Evaluations – Provided an overview of the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association and its role in the insurance industry, as well as its role in the NAIC's shift toward a market-analysis approach to market regulation.

• IRIS Ratios for Market Analysis – Identified how a state should identify outliers for further analysis based on IRIS ratios, what procedures should be in place for effective analysis once they're identified and how to coordination with the financial analysis division and other financial tools.

• Investigation Guidelines and the Market Conduct Examiner – Discussed the NAIC guidelines for conducting market conduct investigations including what they are and how they fit into the market conduct process

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Producer Licensing Section

• Adjusters – What Shall Regulators Do With Them? – A discussion of the types of adjusters (staff, independent, public), state regulatory response to each, including the Public Adjuster Model Act and the licensing of adjusters after catastrophes.

• Producer Licensing and Market Analysis – This session was a roundtable discussion on producer licensing's contribution to market analysis, and market analysis's contribution to producer licensing.

• Smart Act's Impact on Producer Licensing – Discussed the Smart Act's producer-licensing provisions, and its impact on the Producer Licensing Model Act - definitions, uniformity/reciprocity provisions. producer regulation, fiduciary obligations, suitability, licensing, pre-licensing education, continuing education, etc.

Property and Casualty Section

• "Speed to Market" – Discussed the continuous trend to get products out of the hands of regulators and into the market for consumers to purchase, what states have done to get filings approved more quickly, what's working and what isn't. This session also looked at how modern technology helped to speed up the filing and approval process and whether the market dictating the regulatory environment.

• Do You Have a Clue About What's in CLUE? – Provided an overview of CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange), how information is gathered and used, the pros and cons of its usage, and how consumers can check and update their information.

• Umbrella and Excess Policies – What's the REAL Difference? – Explained which product (umbrella or excess policy) is best for which types of risk, when the policies actually kick in above an underlying policy and which policies protect specific gaps in coverage. This session also discussed how states with mandatory uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage laws deal with excess policies that exclude UM liability.

• Ratemaking Models – How is YOUR Premium Determined? – Discussed various ratemaking models and how they measure up in the eyes of regulators, consumers and industry, how are the classifications determined, what the standards are and how have the models changed over the years.

Round Robin Discussions

Topics at this year's Round Robin Discussions included:

• Market Conduct Examiner Certification Process
• Baseline Use of Procedure Review
• Market Analysis
• Producer Licensing Update
• Company Self Evaluation-Health
• Company Self Evaluation-Life
• Sarbanes-Oxley

Joint Sessions

• Producer Fiduciary Responsibilities – Provided a description of responsibilities and problems and included a discussion of the NAIC response (including the Fiduciary Responsibility of Insurance Producers Model Act) and of the NCOIL response.

• Just What is Market Analysis Anyway? – Covered what market analysis is and how it works by answering key questions such as, what's a level one checklist, what happens when level one is done, what is the continuum of actions and when are market conduct exams appropriate?

• CSI: Florida – Catastrophic Scams and Impact – Focused on the aftermath of Hurricanes Charley, Francis, Ivan and Jeanne and discussed the financial impact on the marketplace, Florida's catastrophe funds (including Citizen's), as well as various scams and the lessons to be learned in Florida no matter what the nature of the catastrophes.