Insurance Law
HB 985 – Enacts the Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2006. (See Business Law)
HB 986 – Medicare part D gap coverage. (See Elder Law)
HB 1046 – Medical malpractice insurance premiums. Establishes the basis for medical malpractice insurance premiums to be the average judgment in medical malpractice cases in the county in which the provider practices.
HB 1085 – Health coverage tax credit. (See Taxation Law)
HB 1087 – Medical malpractice and professional negligence insurance. (See Insurance Law) Creates notice and reporting requirements, public market rates, and presumptions for the Department of Insurance and entities providing medical malpractice and professional negligence insurance.
HB 1101 – Health insurance benefits. Allows employers to contract for health insurance benefits at a reduced deductible level for employees who do not smoke or use tobacco products.
HB 1116 – Credit information. Prohibits insurers from using credit information when underwriting insurance contracts.
HB 1117 – Expands lemon laws. Changes lemon laws to apply to boats and watercraft.
HB 1120 – Workers’ compensation. (See Workers’ Compensation)
HB 1129 – Credit scoring. Requires fiduciaries of insurers who use credit scoring in underwriting to annually submit their personal credit score to the Department of Insurance.
HB 1155 – Limits recovery for noneconomic damages. Establishes the Uninsured Motorist Stipulation of Benefits Act of 2006 which limits the recovery for noneconomic losses by uninsured motorists.
HB 1414 – Third party coverage for spouses or children. Requires automobile insurers to offer coverage to policyholders that treats spouses and children as third parties for accidents involving the policyholder and the spouse or children.
HB 1472 – Insurer intervention. (See Civil Practice and Procedure)
HB 1480 – Title Insurance. Modifies the provisions regarding consumer protection and preventing fraud in the business of insurance and the regulation of title insurance.
HJR 32 – Director of Insurance. Proposes a constitutional amendment making the Director of Insurance an elected official.
SB 598 – Credit information. Modifies law regarding the use of credit information by insurance companies.
SB 622 – Tax deduction. Creates an income tax deduction for small businesses and farmers that provide health insurance coverage for employees.
SB 659 – Residential property insurance. An insurer may cancel a homeowner’s policy if physical changes in the property insured have significantly increased the hazards originally insured. Requires the insurer to give the insured 60 days notice prior to canceling the insured’s policy (current law is 30 days). The insurer must also give the insured 60 days of its intention not to renew a policy. Prohibits homeowner insurance companies from considering an inquiry made by the insured as to whether the policy covers a certain loss or whether the policy provides a certain type or level of coverage a claim. Prohibits homeowner insurance companies from refusing to renew a policy on the basis of a weather-related claim. Prohibits insurers from using a rating plan or a rating system which surcharges the insured’s dwelling fire or homeowners insurance premium based upon the insured’s weather-related claims or upon inquiries into whether the policy covers certain losses. Changes the Missouri Basic Property Insurance Inspection and Placement Program to the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan to make property insurance more readily available to people who can’t obtain it from private insurers because their property is considered “high risk”. Under the act, the FAIR plan will offer dwelling fire, commercial fire and homeowners coverage for property owners, renters, and condominium owners. These coverages shall be similar to what is available in the standard market and provide protection against loss from various hazards.
SB 663 – Employer purchasing alliances for group health insurance. Removes statutory restriction that prohibits employer purchasing alliances from forming for the purpose of providing group health insurance.
SB 693 – Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Company Board. Removes the right of policy holders of the Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Company Board to elect directors to the Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Company Board, and allows the governor to appoint new members of the Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Company Board.
SB 804 – Service of summons and petitions in civil actions. (See Civil Practice and Procedure)
SB 811 – Medical malpractice insurance. Enacts various changes with respect to the issue of medical malpractice insurance.
(1) Creates a tax credit for health care providers to offset medical malpractice insurance premiums. The tax credit is in an amount of up to 15% of an annual increase in the provider’s medical malpractice insurance premium, and is capped at $15 million.
(2) Provides that insurers and self-insured health care providers failing to timely report claim information will be subject to penalties and fines Section.
(3) Allows the Director of the Department of Insurance to establish a competitive bidding process with respect to the Missouri Joint Underwriting Association after the director determines that medical malpractice insurance is not reasonably available in the voluntary market.
(4) Establishes new standards and procedures for making and using rates for medical malpractice insurance. Exempts medical malpractice insurance from the rate regulations that apply to other forms of property and casualty insurance. Provides that such rates shall not be excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory. Establishes a procedure for any insurer that desires to increase a rate by less than 15%. Requires the director to require insurers to submit in their application for a rate change the following:
(a) A comparison between the insurer’s projected incurred losses and its ultimate incurred losses for the eight most recent policy years for which data is available and
(b) A memorandum explaining its methodology the insurer used to reflect the total investment income it reasonably expects to earn on all its assets during the period the proposed rate is to be in effect.
Allows the director to consider out-of-state experiences if an insurer has insufficient experience in this state. In some circumstances, the director may consider nationwide experience.
(5) Provides that the ratio between the base rate of the highest-rated specialty and the base rate of the lowest-rated specialty shall be no more than a ratio of six-to-one.
(6) Requires medical malpractice insurers to apply a credit or debit on the provider’s loss experience. The insurer shall include a schedule of all such credits and debits, or a description of such alternative method in all filings it makes with the director of insurance.
(7) Requires each malpractice insurer, on or before March 1st of every year to file certain information with the department of insurance. The information shall consist of or relate to, but not be limited to: closed claims; judgments, payment, and severity of injury in connection with judgments; rate changes during the previous five-year period; premiums and losses by medical specialty; premiums and losses by experience of insured; and investment performance of the insurer.
(8) Requires the department by July 1, 2007, to develop and establish an interactive Internet web site enabling health care providers to obtain medical malpractice insurance quotes. Insurers’ rate changes must be integrated into the website within 10 days. The site must provide contact information for each of the insurers participating. By December 1, 2007, the director of the department must submit a report to the General Assembly on the development, implementation, and effectiveness of the website.
(9) Requires insurers to file new manuals of classifications, rules, underwriting rules, rates, rate plans and modifications, policy forms and other forms to which such rates are applied, that reflect the savings, if any, attributable to each provision in the act.
(10) Requires insurers to provide at least 90 days written notice to insureds of renewal premium rate increases.
SB 823 – Relates to insurance compliance self-evaluative audit privilege. (See Civil Practice and Procedure)
SB 824 – Relates to an insurance company’s right to intervene in civil actions to determine coverage obligations. Allows an insurer who may be obligated to provide a defense to a civil action or indemnity for any judgment rendered, the insurer shall have the right to intervene in such action and request the court to determine the extent of the it’s coverage obligations, while reserving its rights with regard to providing coverage for the claims in the underlying civil action. Requires the court to finally determine the extent of coverage before proceeding with the merits of the underlying action. Renders the judgment of the trial court as to coverage immediately appealable, notwithstanding issues relating to the underlying action remaining unresolved.
SB 839 – Uninsured Motorist Stipulation of Benefits Act of 2006. Limits the recovery for non-economic damages by uninsured motorists.