Credit for Reinsurance Model Act filed as SB 1070
Chairman Hancock filed SB 1070 on Thursday. It is expected to be heard in Senate Business & Commerce on March 7th along with the hailstorm bill. The same witness panel as the Interim House Insurance hearing, which included Bo Gilbert from USAA and Ted Kennedy from AIG, would be ideal for this hearing. We still expect Representative Frullo to author the bill in the House, though Chairman Phillips may take the bill over after the two have time to discuss transition, which has not happened yet.

Insurers had a good meeting with Senator Taylor last week and made it clear that this is a bill the industry would like to see passed. It was explained that the bill is necessary for international sellers and gives the companies the ability and consistency of having their home state department be their regulator. Staff’s response to this was that those regulators change often, so the consistency is not guaranteed. Ted explained that Texas' environment has been consistently reasonable, more so over other states, and remains their preference long term. We expect Senator Taylor will ultimately vote for the bill, but we should continue to do education with the other committee members on this issue.

We expect the February 28th House Insurance Committee hearing will discuss reinsurance in detail but not hear the bill.

Enterprise Risk Report Exemption Removal Bill Filed
Chairman Hancock filed TDI’s biennial report recommendation regarding removing the exemption for filing the enterprise risk management report as SB 1073. The bill as filed does not have the language regarding farm mutuals or Texas-only companies, but a committee substitute is being drafted to include that language.

TALHI Member Call
The next TALHI member call will be held on Wednesday, March 1, at 10 am Central. To call in, dial 1-888-537-7715 and enter code 333-444-567# when prompted. An agenda will be posted next week.

Calendar

March 1, 2017, 10 am Central
TALHI Member Call

September 24-26, 2017
TALHI Round Up, Austin Four Seasons

Jennifer Cawley
Executive Director
(512) 651-3573 (Direct)
(512) 656-2850 (Mobile)
(512) 472-6886 (Main)