As we last reported, on August 31, Governor Hochul announced that that Adrienne Harris was been nominated as Superintendent of Financial Services. Acting Superintendent Harris began work at the Department earlier this month.
NAIFA visited Albany last month as part of its “Member Experience” tour. NAIFA had the opportunity to meet with the Life Insurance Council of New York (LICONY) to discuss common legislative objectives. That same day, NAIFA hosted New York State Senator Neil Breslin to meet with NAIFA members in the Albany area. Senator Breslin stated that he was pleased to work with NAIFA on legislative issues. He also said that he was looking forward to meeting with Acting Superintendent Harris in the coming weeks. His prediction was that it would be a “quiet” year for insurance given the upcoming election for governor.
Last week at the New York City Bar, Insurance Committee, Deputy Superintendent My Chi To emphasized that the Department would continue its priorities of climate and diversity, as well as focus on innovation of regulations to keep pace with innovation. Although she did not provide details, she foreshadowed a forthcoming amendment to Circular Letter No. 1 which discusses use of data or information sources not directly related to the medical condition of the applicant that is used to supplement traditional medical underwriting, as a proxy for traditional medical underwriting of an applicant for life insurance coverage.
Harris’s only public action to date has been on the banking side. She announced a new proposed regulation that will improve transparency for small businesses seeking commercial financing. The new proposed regulation requires companies that offer commercial financing in amounts under $2.5 million to make standardized disclosures about the terms of credit. These standardized disclosures will help businesses and individuals understand and compare the terms of different commercial financing offers. To date, she has not made any public comments pertaining to insurance.
Finally, in the last month, we continue to see disciplinary actions against producers for paying compensation to unlicensed persons. The Department also fined an insurance producer for an advertisement that offered prospective insured a 20% new business discount
