Friday, March 5, 2010

NCOIL Meeting Kicks Off Today

Annuities will be one of the key topics that state legislators are looking at as they convene today in Charleston, South Carolina.

The National Conference of Insurance Legislators, Troy, N.Y., will consider a resolution to protect the rights of consumers who purchase annuities with guarantees.

The resolution follows the announcement by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., that it will hold a public hearing, probably in May, to examine the issue.

The resolution states that NCOIL believes that the rights of insurance consumers purchasing annuities should be protected.

It also states that the issue of the right to assign and sell in-force annuities should potentially be incorporated into the NCOIL Life Settlements Model Act or addressed in a separate model act “to protect the rights and interests of annuity consumers and prevent the illegal sale
of annuities prior to their issuance.”

The resolution also opposes “the Additional Standards for Guaranteed Living Benefits for Individual Deferred Non-Variable Annuities, Additional Standards for Guaranteed Living Benefits for Individual Deferred Variable Annuities and Additional Standards for Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefits for Individual Deferred Variable Annuities as adopted by the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission (IIPRC) as being unjustified and anti-consumer because they take away the contractual rights of owners of annuities without justification.”

And it resolves that “NCOIL members of the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission (IIPRC) should elect to opt out of these standards and include in such opt-out language, a statutory provision which states that these rider benefits are assignable and shall not be terminated if the contract is sold, transferred, or assigned;.”

The resolution would also be sent to “state legislative leaders, Governors, the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission (IIPRC), the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), and the state chief insurance regulatory officials.”

Other resolutions that will be considered oppose an Office of National Insurance and a resolution urging the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee To exclude insurers from systemic risk regulation and assessments for the resolution of systemically risky companies.

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