[§431:10D-626]  Insurance producer training.  (a)  An insurance producer shall not solicit the sale of an annuity product unless the insurance producer has adequate knowledge of the product to recommend the annuity and the insurance producer is in compliance with the insurer's standards for product training.  An insurance producer may rely on insurer-provided product-specific training and materials to comply with this subsection.

     (b)  Any insurance producer who is authorized to sell life or accident and health or sickness insurance and who engages in the sale of annuity products shall complete by January 31, 2012, a one-time training course on annuity products that is approved by the commissioner and is conducted by an approved continuing education course provider.  An insurance producer who obtains a life insurance line of authority after January 31, 2012, shall not engage in the sale of annuities until the insurance provider has completed training that meets the following requirements:

     (1)  The minimum length of the training shall be sufficient to qualify for at least four continuing education credits;

     (2)  The training shall include information on the following topics:

         (A)  The types and various classifications of annuities available on the market;

         (B)  Identification of the parties to an annuity;

         (C)  How fixed, variable, and indexed annuity contract provisions affect consumers;

         (D)  The application of income taxation to qualified and non-qualified annuities;

         (E)  The primary uses of annuities; and

          (F)  Appropriate sales practices, replacement, and disclosure requirements; and

     (3)  The training shall not include any marketing information for products of any particular insurer or training on sales techniques.

     (c)  An insurer shall verify that an insurance producer has completed the annuity training course required by this section before allowing the producer to sell an annuity product for the insurer.  An insurer may satisfy its responsibility under this subsection by obtaining certificates of completion from the training course provider, or by obtaining reports from the commissioner, from training course providers, or from a reasonably reliable commercial database vendor that has a reporting arrangement with approved insurance continuing education providers. [L 2011, c 108, §2]