STAND. COM. REP. 2549
Honolulu, Hawaii
, 2004
RE: S.B. No. 2886
S.D. 1
Honorable Robert Bunda
President of the Senate
Twenty-Second State Legislature
Regular Session of 2004
State of Hawaii
Sir:
Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 2886 entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO INSURANCE,"
begs leave to report as follows:
The purpose of this measure is to update and streamline the insurance code.
The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and NAIFA Hawaii testified in support of this measure. State Farm Insurance Companies and the Hawaii Insurers Council opposed the measure. The American Council of Life Insurers offered comments.
In 2001, the State adopted the Producer License Model Act (PLMA) pursuant to the federal mandates established in the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), and over the following two years, continued to amend the insurance laws to conform to federal requirements.
This measure makes additional amendments throughout the insurance code to ensure conformity with the PLMA and GLBA, and makes other changes for the purpose of making the insurance laws more efficient and comprehensible, less burdensome, and technically correct. Among other things, this measure:
(1) Authorizes the destruction of self-insurance applications, registration documents, and certificates of compliance and deposits after one year of retention;
(2) Repeals the public notice requirement for certification of foreign insurers in designated states;
(3) Authorizes the Insurance Commissioner (Commissioner) to waive publication and notice requirements for withdrawal by an insurer;
(4) Clarifies that redomestication may include domestications occurring in other states of the United States branch office of an authorized alien insurer;
(5) Authorizes the Commissioner to provide notice of revocation or suspension of an insurer's certificate of authority to other state insurance departments through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' data base;
(6) Reduces the licensing fee for resident producers from $75 to $50;
(7) Authorizes the Commissioner to appoint advisers to review captive applications; and
(8) Repeals duplicative provisions and corrects statutory references.
Your Committee finds that this measure will help to modernize the State's insurance laws, ease filing requirements for insurers, and bring Hawaii's laws into conformity with federal law and national standards.
Your Committee has amended this measure by:
(1) Deleting the proposed new section to article 10E, chapter 431, Hawaii Revised States, that would have required an insurer that intended to discontinue the writing of property insurance coverage to provide the Commissioner with thirteen months advance notification stating the reasons for the discontinuation; and
(2) Making numerous technical, nonsubstantive changes to correct terminology, to accurately reflect the language of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, and to reflect preferred drafting style.
As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2886, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2886, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing,
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____________________________ RON MENOR, Chair |
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