CDI Sponsored Legislation
Under the leadership of Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, the California Department of Insurance is sponsoring the following bills this year:
AB 52 (Feuer): This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to require approval from the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance for increases in health care premiums, copayments, or deductibles.
AB 315 (Solorio): This bill would revise and recast the provisions governing surplus line brokers and nonadmitted insurers to make them consistent with the federal Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, including, but not limited to, the duties, responsibilities, and licensure of surplus line brokers, taxation of surplus line insurance, and the eligibility of nonadmitted insurers to do business in this state. Certain provisions of the act would become operative on July 21, 2011.
AB 624 (J. Perez): The bill would extend the operation of existing tax credits for investments made into a community development financial institution by insurers until January 1, 2017, and require the Insurance Commissioner to establish a California Organized Investment Network Advisory Board, as specified, to advise the California Organized Investment Network on the best methods of increasing insurance investments while providing fair returns to investors and social benefits to underserved communities.
AB 689 (Blumenfield): This bill is a spot bill relative to seniors and annuities.
AB 793 (Eng): This bill would prohibit an insurer, broker, agent, or others engaged in the transaction of insurance, except as provided, from participating in, being associated with, or employing any party that participates in or is associated with, the origination of a reverse mortgage, or referring a client or prospective client to any party that participates in or is associated with the origination of a reverse mortgage.
AB 999 (Yamada): This bill is a spot bill relative to long-term care insurance.
SB 51 (Alquist): The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act prohibits a health insurance issuer issuing health insurance coverage from establishing lifetime limits or unreasonable annual limits on the dollar value of benefits for any participant or beneficiary. The act also requires a health insurance issuer issuing health insurance coverage to provide an annual rebate to each enrollee if the ratio of the amount of the revenue expended by the issuer on costs to the total amount of premium revenue is less than a certain percentage. This bill would require health care service plans and health insurers to comply with the requirements imposed under those provisions to the extent required under federal law.
SB 599 (Kehoe): This bill would prohibit an individual or group life insurance policy delivered or issued for delivery in this state from containing a provision that requires the beneficiary to take life insurance proceeds in the form of a retained-asset account, as defined, or any arrangement other than a lump-sum payment. The bill would require that unless a policyholder or beneficiary has elected in writing that the beneficiary be paid life insurance benefits in another form, all life insurance benefits would be paid in the form of a lump-sum payment to the beneficiary. Any life insurance benefits settlement insurer recommendations and agreements, other than for a lump-sum payment, would be required to conform to specified conditions. The bill would authorize the Insurance Commissioner to adopt regulations specifying reasonable requirements for the form of agreements entered into and written disclosures provided by these provisions.
SB 621 (Calderon): This bill would provide that if a policy, contract, certificate, or agreement offered, issued, delivered, or renewed, whether or not in California, that provides or funds life insurance or disability insurance coverage for any California resident contains a provision that reserves discretionary authority to the insurer, or an agent of the insurer, to determine eligibility for benefits or coverage, to interpret the terms of the policy, contract, certificate, or agreement, or to provide standards of interpretation or review that are inconsistent with the laws of this state, that provision would be void and unenforceable. The bill would define the term "discretionary authority" for these purposes. bill would also require the commissioner to disapprove any disability policy that contains a provision of this type.
SB 631 (Evans): This is a spot bill relative to compliance actions. Rumor has it, this bill will be amended to address health insurer rescissions.
SB 712 (Committee on Insurance): This is a spot bill. It appears to reference code sections on the State Compensation Insurance Fund, long term care insurance and unfair business actions.
The Department of Insurance is also sponsoring a technical omnibus bill to be authored by the Assembly Insurance Committee.
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