The following topics are on the current IIABNY board action list.
1. Compensation Disclosure. Status with the Insurance Department.

2. Dishonored Checks. IIABNY will seek sponsorship of legislation to offset current Ins. Dept. Gen. Counsel opinion that payment to agents is not necessarily payment to a company, vis-à-vis a current situation where one carrier is sweeping agency accounts including bad checks and not canceling policies where that has occurred.

The November Board meeting included the following matters:
1. Direct Writer/Captive Commodity Sales. The state and national associations want to step up public education about the difference between these and agency driven sales. Special interest is where have been losses involving lack of coverage from a direct/captive writer policy replacing an independent agency produced policy. Many times, the direct/captive writer will include lower limits or even less coverage in order to save the customer money, while the customer may be unaware that the replacing coverage is not the same. The membership wants the association to take a more pro-active role over this issue, since press releases don’t seem to do the job, so a national task force is to address the issue of different coverage and direct/captive writer sales practices in general.

2. NYPIUA Bonds. There had been a proposal to extend NYPIUA’s authority to the commercial bond market to provide contractor bonds to women and minority owned contracting firms currently having problems securing required bonds for municipal work. We have since learned that this probably won’t come to pass because the Surety Assn. of America might find a way to cooperatively fill the gap.

3. Next Gen. Conference. There were 30 attendees at the recent conference, all of whom raved about the classes and sessions. IIABNY will survey agencies to see what programs the next gen. associates want. More attendees are encouraged.

4. Strategic Initiative - Education. All 6 training modules are now developed and the website is complete. The program is to be rolled out January 2008.

5. Strategic Initiative – Carrier Advocacy. We published the results of our summer carrier survey and several companies were complimentary. A letter will go out to membership encouraging participation in this quarterly exercise to help us keep the companies on their toes. We use an outside party to compile the responses so that IIABNY is always at arms length with the results. The carriers are very interested in these reports.

6. Strategic Initiative – Improved E&O Program. Westport is going to automatic renewals (no doubt due to the new competition they are facing). IAAC revenues are down as the result of competition in pricing, but this was expected. IAAC income, however, is what helps keep membership dues level over long periods.

7. Coastal Market Issue. We discussed IIABNY’s testimony at the Senate’s coastal market hearing in Suffolk County. We feel we were able to diffuse the ongoing Insurance Dept. perception that there is broad market availability at affordable prices. Several Senate panel members asked specific questions and we believe some action might be taken in 2008, such as a change in the 4% cancellation allowance restricting homeowner policy cancellations and non-renewals by rating territory.

8. Workers Compensation Reform. IIABNY is concerned with the aggregate trust fund which needs to be fixed. We’ve had discussions with the Workers Comp. Board over the out-of-state employer situation and expect this will be mitigated by an interpretation of the WCB to again recognize the All-states endorsement as covering out-of-state employer responsibilities for other than their NY domiciled employees or those working regularly in the state. The assessment issue is also getting a lot of attention from agents because the State Fund’s assessment charge is so much lower than that of private insurers and the Association will look into how that unfair advantage can be rectified.

9. Labor Law Sections 240 & 241. The BBCNY’s lawsuit over this law (as being unconstitutional for denial of employers’ right to defend these cases) is going to the appeals court. IIABNY has been financially supporting this cause.

10. Compensation Disclosure. The Ins. Dept. has drafted a regulation and we expect to soon have an opportunity to comment on it. Supt. Dinallo wants our input on it. He will also attend our 2008 L-Day Conference.

11. NY First Coalition. A meeting to be held December 3rd will include a discussion whether to reach out to the coastal market situation.

12. 2008 Legislative Session is expected to be active with issues revolving around ‘Troopergate” and its outfall that brought state government to a standstill this fall, NYPIUA permanency, rating territory cancellations and other cancellation restrictions being a few of them.

13. E&S Export List Expansion is another item being discussed along with reformation of the broker statement requirement to a tri-annual basis.

14. Late Notice of Claim Denials. IIABNY had good feedback from many of the insurers contacted with a request that they use this reason for denying claims more judiciously than in the past. We reminded them of our pressure to defeat the original legislation that would also have opened them up a third party right to declaratory action prior to suing a policyholder. We will propose a new bill addressing only late notice.

15. 2008 Legislative Position Paper has been published and approved. L-Day is scheduled for Wednesday, January 23rd due to other conflicts with the Legislature.

16. Financial Services Regulation. We will seek a position with a task force appointed by the governor to study the integration of insurance and banking regulation as has been done in states like Florida. Presently, most of the members are from insurance companies and banks and we will promote a place for agents there, too.

17. Monoline Worker Compensation. The Association is replacing the previous monoline Workers Compensation program with a new supplier.