I have previously written about my efforts to fill some of the gaps in the annual report of the NY superintendent of financial services to the legislature and the governor through the use of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. As I reported, the result was a mixed bag – some success and some not so […]
What do you do when you do not like the statutory format of a required report? The options would seem to be to comply with the reporting requirement, ignore the law and be punished for failing to comply, or change the requirement. If you are a licensed insurance company, broker, agent or other regulated entity, […]
New York’s superintendent of financial services, Benjamin Lawsky, spoke recently about healthy competition. Before you get too excited about a new direction for the DFS, I should point out that he was talking about competition among financial regulators, not among insurance companies or other industry participants (see related article this issue). Speaking at a highly-regarded […]
How do we want young people to view our industry? Are we happy with their learning about us from the Hollywood version of greedy, heartless, old men denying desperate people from just compensation? Do we want tomorrow’s hopes to view us as surrounded by legions of high-paid, well-dressed lawyers overwhelming the helpless? Or how about […]
There was a time not so long ago when the New York Insurance Department took the view that if an insurance company stopped writing new business and tried to simply run-off its business, it was engaging in a prohibited activity—self-liquidation. The failure to “do the business of insurance for a period of one year” was—and […]
Time Out! “Many baseball fans look upon an umpire as a sort of necessary evil to the luxury of baseball, like the odor that follows an automobile.” – Hall of Fame Pitcher Christy Mathewson Spring is here, and with it a new baseball season. As a new season begins, the past is history, optimism abounds […]
On February 7, 2013, almost one hundred fifty life insurance executives, regulators and legislators gathered at the Mutual of America Headquarters in New York City to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of the Life Insurance Council of New York (LICONY). Welcoming and substantive legislative and regulatory remarks were provided at the event by New York State […]
In 1995 then NY superintendent of insurance, Ed Muhl, took an extraordinary step: he by-passed the Liquidation Bureau and appointed an independent special agent in charge of the liquidation of an insurance company – United Community Insurance Company (UCIC). The independent agent engaged a core group of professionals to assist with the marshalling of assets, […]
Even though the courts have once again come to the rescue of the Bureau, the ELNY fiasco fully exposed the Bureau for its decades-long covert mismanagement of insolvent insurance companies. The New York Superintendent of Financial Services and the New York Liquidation Bureau have experienced two major victories in the past few weeks. First, they […]
Q: May a licensed insurance agent or broker co-sponsor seminars with a law firm in order to provide general insurance advice to employers? A: Yes. (NY Insurance Department, Office of General Counsel Opinion No. 11-01-07) Q: May an insurer require a third-party claimant to execute a release before the insurer will pay a settled claim? […]
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