Regulators, Lawmakers Eye Agent Fee Accounting Procedures

Point out lawmakers and condition coverage regulators could improve accounting principles in a way that would lead to head aches for some insurers that use exterior companies to pay out trail commissions to brokers and brokers.

Some accounting professionals would like to see insurers document the path fee liabilities when insurers to start with issue the impacted guidelines. This is even if the agents and brokers have not but locked in the appropriate to get the trail commissions, in accordance to documents posted on the web sites of the Countrywide Council of Coverage Legislators (NCOIL) and the Countrywide Association of Coverage Commissioners (NAIC).

Sources

• A copy of the 30-day supplies packet for NCOIL’s upcoming assembly in Tampa, Florida, is accessible in this article.
• Links to files associated to the operate of the NAIC’s Statutory Accounting Ideas Doing work Team on the SSAP 71 update are out there below.
• An article about an NCOIL insurance policy business division design law project is available here.

The Statutory Accounting Principles Doing work Team, an arm of the NAIC, talked about accounting for commissions that are compensated as a result of an outside firm, and contingent on insurance coverage policy or annuity contract persistency, at a hearing previously this thirty day period.

Associates of the NCOIL-NAIC Dialogue Committee are preparing to talk about the topic Dec. 11, at a session at NCOLI’s forthcoming in-individual once-a-year conference. The 4-working day assembly is set to get started Dec. 9 in Tampa, Florida.

NCOIL is a group for lawmakers who provide in legislative bodies at the point out degree, these as condition senates and state assemblies, and who have an curiosity in insurance plan.

The Qualifications

Condition insurance coverage regulators set Statutory Accounting Rules (SAP) accounting principles for insurers.

The proposed commission accounting rule modifications would influence Assertion on Statutory Accounting Ideas (SSAP) Selection 71 — Plan Acquisition Expenditures and Commissions.

Officers who guidance the adjustments say allowing an insurance company wait to recognize persistency-dependent commissions compensated via an outdoors company until the commissions are locked in could aid an insurance company bypass recognition of expenditures that would generally be extra to fees in the first 12 months of the agreement.

Opponents of the proposed variations, which include Mike Chaney, the Mississippi insurance coverage commissioner, say the proposed changes would disrupt fee reporting preparations that have been in location for a long time.

“It seems these new revisions could have unintended consequences and probably have a material affect on how the corporation accounts for these unique transactions,” Chaney wrote in a letter that was despatched to the Statutory Accounting Rules Working Team Oct. 29 and incorporated in a operating team conference packet.

An accounting rule upkeep agenda submission form included in the functioning group assembly packet reveals that the officials asking for the SSAP 71 update believe it would affect life, overall health, and house and casualty issuers.

The assembly packet also contains an case in point of how a official SSAP 71 draft update update proposal and commenters’ option proposals may possibly work. The creators of the hypothetical instance use accounting for a single-premium rapid annuity to illustrate the achievable effects of the proposals.

The NCOIL Standpoint

Members of NCOIL’s NCOIL-NAIC Dialogue Committee talked about the SSAP 71 update proposal during a session the committee held Sept. 25 in Alexandria, Virginia, at NCOIL’s summer assembly, according to draft minutes for the Sept. 25 session that are bundled in the doc packet for the session scheduled for Dec. 11.

Condition Assemblyman Ken Cooley of California, a Democrat who serves as chair of the NCOIL-NAIC Dialogue Committee, reported one particular issue is that the NAIC’s Statutory Accounting Principles Performing Group may perhaps be attempting to carry out the SSAP 71 update as a “non-substantive” modify. This suggests the improve would not go as a result of the exact same form of approval system essential for a substantive change, according to the draft minutes.

Some commenters have claimed that the influence of the proposed changes could amount to as a lot as 30% of some insurers’ hazard-centered funds, Cooley claimed. A possibility-dependent cash ratio is a evaluate of roughly how considerably financial capacity an insurer has to guidance its insurance policy and annuity benefits obligations.

Scott White, the Virginia coverage commissioner, explained the proposed SSAP 71 update would be a clarification of current accounting procedures that have been in spot considering that ahead of 1998, in accordance to the draft meeting minutes.

If some insurers defer recognition of commission liabilities and other folks really don’t, evaluating the insurers’ fiscal statements may perhaps be challenging, White explained.

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