Final Action
The Commissioner of Insurance, at a public hearing under Docket No. 2472
held at 1:30 p.m., December 11, 2000 in Room 100 of the William P. Hobby Jr.
State Office Building, 333 Guadalupe Street in Austin, Texas, adopted amendments
proposed by Staff to the Texas Automobile Rules and Rating Manual (the Manual),
Rule 48, and to the Automobile Liability Experience Rating Plan (the Plan),
relating to filing requirements and the furnishing of information for experience
rating. Staff's petition (Ref. No. A-1000-27-I), was published in the November
10, 2000, issue of the
Texas Register
(25
TexReg 11295).
Pursuant to these amendments, insurers, rather than the Texas Department
of Insurance (Department), will perform all routine experience rating functions,
subject to information requests by the Department. Insurers will be required
to maintain experience data for five years and to supply any requesting company,
agent, or insured with experience rating information within 30 calendar days
of the request. Staff had initially proposed a response time of 15 days, but
in response to filed comments, and upon reconsideration, Staff concluded that
30 days would be a more reasonable time period to allow companies adequate
time to comply with requests for experience rating data. It is also consistent
with the 30 day provision in the Insurance Code, Article 21.59 which requires
insurers to provide claim information to certain insureds. The amendments,
which include various editorial changes, are as follows: Rule 48, Section
B, third paragraph; Section B.2.(a) and (b) are amended; Section B.2.(c) (deleted);
Section B.2.(d) (redesignated as "(c)"); Section B.2.(e) (redesignated as
"(d)"); Section B.4. (deleted); Section B.5. (redesignated as "B.4."); Section
B.6. (redesignated as "B.5." and is also amended). The change to Manual Rule
48.D. is merely editorial. The sections of the Plan to be amended are as follows:
Section III "Note 3" (deleted); Section IV.7.; and Administrative Rules.
The Insurance Code, Article 5.77 (enacted in 1953) authorizes the promulgation
of "premium rating plans designed to encourage the prevention of accidents,
to recognize the peculiar hazards of individual risks for...motor vehicle
and other lines of Casualty Insurance...." This article does not mandate filing
of experience rating information with the Department, and it allows the Commissioner
broad rulemaking discretion regarding rating plans. The Board of Insurance
Commissioners exercised that discretion and adopted a plan for experience
rating of commercial automobiles, effective September 1, 1953, as evidenced
in its July 30, 1953 letter to the manager of the Texas Automobile Insurance
Service Office (TAISO). At the time, the Insurance Code, Article 5.10 (enacted
in 1951) gave the Board "full power and control over any administrative agencies
and/or stamping office which may be organized or established by insurer [sic]
with the Board's approval to carry into effect the provisions..." regarding
automobile insurance. The Board's letter described the duties to be performed
by TAISO regarding the Plan.
In later years, prior to March 18, 1992, the provisions of the Plan and
Rule 48 of the Manual required TAISO to operate the Plan, subject to supervision
by the State Board of Insurance. Board Order No. 59371, effective March 18,
1992, changed all references in the Plan and Manual Rule 48 from TAISO to
"the Department or a qualified entity." TAISO performed as the qualified entity
until December 31, 1992, but during that year the Board abandoned the idea
of having a qualified entity operate experience rating as discussed below.
Board Order No. 59787, effective January 1, 1993 amended the Plan and Manual
Rule 48 to remove all references to "a qualified entity." The Department lacked
adequate resources to perform all the functions that had been performed by
TAISO, and the above order required insurers to perform some of those functions,
subject to oversight by the Department.
Currently, the Department maintains a file for each individual experience
rated risk in Texas. Upon receipt, policies, endorsements, and ownership information
are placed in the appropriate individual file. The Department receives the
calculated modifiers from insurers and updates an experience rating database
accordingly. The Department may request additional information from insurers.
The Department releases modifier information when requested. Although the
Department maintains this information, it is the insurers' responsibility
to calculate the experience modifiers and provide other insurers the experience
data upon request. Specifically, through the amendments, the Department will
no longer maintain a file on each experience rated risk or provide modifiers
or other experience rating information pertaining to a specific risk. The
Insurance Council of Texas (ICT), an entity that arose from the merger of
TAISO and the Texas Insurance Advisory Association, made verbal comments and
submitted a written statement in this proceeding. ICT proposed that it be
designated as the "qualified entity" to handle experience rating functions
for all insurers in the manner that TAISO did during part of 1992. Although
ICT indicated its proposal would result in more uniformity and greater compliance
than Staff's proposal, no evidence was found to support that conclusion. It
is also possible that ICT's proposal would cost insurers more than Staff's
proposal, and that those costs would be passed on to consumers. It appears
the action sought by ICT would be a step backward in the trend to ease regulatory
burdens on insurers writing commercial risks.
The purpose of this order is to eliminate unnecessary filing requirements
for insurers as well as to continue oversight and improve regulatory efficiency,
while maintaining adequate protection for consumers. The elimination of filing
requirements for insurers will eliminate the current duplication that results
from the Department maintaining and providing the same information insurers
are currently required to provide. As Staff suggested, the Department will
not continue to perform routine experience rating functions, but the amendments
will require insurers: (1) to perform those functions, and (2) to maintain
and make records available to the Department. Each insurer will be required
to respond to inquiries regarding its experience rated risks, upon request
from another insurer, an agent, or an insured. The Department will take appropriate
action to insure that insurers are complying with the Manual and the Plan
as amended.
The amendments as adopted by the Commissioner of Insurance are shown in
exhibits on file with the Chief Clerk under Ref. No. A-1000-27-I, which are
incorporated by reference into Commissioner's Order No. 00-1383.
The Commissioner of Insurance has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant
to the Insurance Code, Articles 5.10, 5.77, 5.78, 5.96, 5.98, and 5.101.
This notification is made pursuant to the Insurance Code, Article 5.96,
which exempts it from the requirements of the Government Code, Chapter 2001
(Administrative Procedure Act).
Consistent with the Insurance Code, Article 5.96(h), the Department will
notify all insurers writing automobile insurance of this adoption by letter
summarizing the Commissioner's action.
IT IS THEREFORE THE ORDER of the Commissioner of Insurance that the Manual
and the Plan are amended as described herein, and the amendments are adopted
to become effective on the 15th day after publication of the notification
of the Commissioner's action in the
Texas Register
.
TRD-200009053
Lynda Nesenholtz
General Counsel and Chief Clerk
Texas Department of Insurance
Filed: December 28, 2000