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What is Getting Insurance Producers in Trouble With the State?

The New York State Department of Financial Services yesterday released its periodic report of disciplinary actions taken against insurers, agents, brokers and adjusters. I review each of these reports when they come out, for a couple of reasons:

• To see if any Big I New York members are named
• To see the types of violations for which producers are being disciplined

I often get questions from members that can be summed up as, "What will happen to me if I do X?" These reports give me examples that I can cite when I get those questions.

Called On The Carpet: Recent Disciplinary Actions Against NY Producers

Photo by Grotuk. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

 

The New York State Department of Financial Services released its latest periodic disciplinary actions report last week. Compared to some editions, this one was relatively short. A few insurers were taken to the woodshed for violating the laws pertaining to cancellation notices (balance sheets at 21st Century, AXA and MetLife are a tad lighter now than they were in April.)

The good news for agents and brokers was 1) not that many hearings and stipulations; and 2) a lot of the punishments were doled out to out-of-state producers.

Slideshow Tutorial on NARAB II

​When Congress and the president extended the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act last month, they also enacted the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act. This law will make multistate licensing far easier for insurance producers all over the country. The slideshow shown below is a quick overview of what NARAB is and what it means. The slideshow will be permanently available on the Licensing page of the IIABNY Member Answer Center and the CE & Licensing Help page in the Education section of the IIABNY Web site.

NARAB II from Tim Dodge

Can a Personal Lines Broker Service Commercial Lines?

Question from an IIABNY member: Back in the day when I became a licensed broker, the only P&C option available was a full P&C license to become an agent or broker. Now with GEICO coming to western New York, the option of having a personal lines license is available. My question is, if a staff member opts to only obtain a personal lines brokers license, as an agency does that prohibit us from allowing the staff member to do certain things in commercial lines?  I understand that they shouldn’t be selling commercial lines but what about serving commercial lines?

Answer: I think the best way to answer this question is to look at the definitions in New York insurance law, specifically Section 2101.