Legislature(2005 - 2006)CAPITOL 17
03/30/2005 03:15 PM House LABOR & COMMERCE
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB147 | |
| HB180 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| += | HB 147 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 180 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HB 147-INSURANCE CHAIR ANDERSON announced that the first order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 147, "An Act relating to the regulation of insurance, insurance licensing, surplus lines, insurer deposits, motor vehicle service contracts, guaranteed automobile protection products, health discount plans, third-party administrators, self-funded multiple employer welfare arrangements, and self-funded governmental plans; and providing for an effective date." CHAIR ANDERSON moved to adopt CSHB 147, Version G, as the working document. 3:25:49 PM REPRESENTATIVE GUTTENBERG objected and recalled that in the previous meeting there was a heated discussion online from people who wanted to talk about workers' compensation and that he believed that any future meeting would include more public testimony and the ability to continue discussing the issue. CHAIR ANDERSON opined that this would be brief. REPRESENTATIVE GUTTENBERG removed his objection. There being no further objection, Version G was before the committee. 3:26:21 PM CHAIR ANDERSON stated that the discussion prompted the removal of the following provisions from the original legislation: page 15, line 6 through page 17, line 25; page 17, line 26 through page 18, line 3; page 18, lines 4-20, and finally, page 19, lines 12-15 and lines 20-28. CHAIR ANDERSON then stated that there were also additions made to the bill. He pointed out the new Section 3, page 2, line 8 through page 3, line 21, and Section 24 page 25, lines 24-29. He then stated that this amendment addresses limitations on the use of owner controlled insurance programs and contractor controlled insurance programs. All the above-mentioned changes have been done with the approval of the Division of Insurance, the bill's sponsor. LINDA HALL, Director, Division of Insurance, Department of Commerce, Community, & Economic Development, indicated that the two problematic sections were removed. The first one was the union health trust issue and the other concerned the regulation authority over promulgation of regulations on guaranteed auto protection (GAP) and service contracts. She then said that they also added a section on the rules that govern when owner controlled insurance programs can be used. She ended by stating that these changes are not intended to change the divisions existing statutory authority to regulate in these areas, and she made it clear that the division has a broad definition of insurance, and that they have statutory language that could subject these groups to certain kinds of regulation as it exists today. REPRESENTATIVE GUTTENBERG requested more detail about the sections that were taken out. MS. HALL explained that the sections that were taken out were the provisions that gave authority to promulgate regulations that look at the GAP products and the service contracts. What remains are a variety of changes to licensing of producers to make it a more streamlined process, to clean up the our surplus lines regulations, to allow the insured deposits to be given to the guarantee association when that is due. 3:29:47 PM MS. HALL then asserted that there have been some real abuses of health care discount plans, and the changes here will give us the authority to regulate those and it changes how we register and regulate third party administrators of health insurance contracts. She ended by stating that the bill also creates some new definitions. 3:30:04 PM REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD stated that the changes that have been discussed are the ones that he wanted to see, however, he stated that this is a very quick turnaround and he indicated that he felt that he had not been enough time to read the new CS to determine if he had any questions. He then said that he had no disagreements so far. CHAIR ANDERSON offered to go through all the sections that have been deleted or abridged. 3:31:23 PM REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD said that he was currently looking at Section 3 to determine the changes that have been made. 3:31:36 PM MS. HALL stated that the additions to Section 3 were the following: the ability to have owner controlled insurance program or "wrap up policies", where the owner purchases liability for the entire crew. However, she indicated that this ability is being extended to other occupational situations. She also said that this type of insurance is taking premium volume from an already fragile market in a state that has very few insurance companies willing to sell insurance here. She stated that these contractor insurance packages make it hard to keep enough premium volume to put together a good package. This has been the viewpoint of the Division of Insurance since 1995 and this, she said, is really just the codification of that viewpoint. REPRESENTATIVE LEDOUX said that though she did not know if she had a real problem with the bill, she did express concern that this bill has been around since the beginning of the session and that seemed to her like it was a major issue, based on the amount of testimony that has been given and the fact that it has been indicated today that the issue had been tossed around since 1995. She complained that although what was being said today made sense, the fact that it might very well be passed out today would not allow other viewpoints to be heard and this was important to her. 3:34:42 PM CHAIR ANDERSON indicated that there had already been several days of testimony on this bill and that the concept is not new, nor is the idea of amending the bill new at all. MS. HALL explained that this amendment was given to the committee at the last meeting and there was tremendous public testimony. The ideas and amendments were brought forward by the insurance community in response to the testimony. 3:35:50 PM CHAIR ANDERSON stated for the committee that he did note that he would be addressing the concerns that were brought up in testimony and that amendments would be made. He indicated that to be fair to the legislative process, he felt that ample time was given to the bill and to the gathering of public testimony, and that to give any more time would slow the process down and make it impossible to make a legislative decision. 3:36:41 PM CHAIR ANDERSON pointed out that there is another committee through which the public can voice more concern and that it would be prudent to pass the amendment through today and move the bill out of committee. REPRESENTATIVE KOTT moved to report CSHB 147, Version G, out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being no objection, CSHB 147(L&C) was reported from the House Labor and Commerce Standing Committee.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|