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Who cares
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Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Referred to insurance
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Relates to the posting of internet policies on the internet
In Assembly Committee · Insurance · Sponsor Dan Quart
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
BILL NUMBER:S7250
Title of bill
An act to amend the insurance law, in relation to posting insurance policies on the internet
Purpose
To allow state-approved insurance policies to be accessed on the internet instead of being mailed unless specifically requested by the policyholder.
Summary of provisions
Adds a new section 3455 to the Insurance Law to permit a property/casualty insurance company to elect to post state-approved insurance policies and endorsements on the company's website. Policyholders would be able request a free paper copy of the insurance policy.
Justification
Each year property and casualty insurance companies print and then mail millions of policy contract booklets to their customers. Often, these policies can exceed fifty pages in length. Surveys suggest consumers often toss their policies into the recycle bins without ever reading them. While e-commerce laws have helped to eliminate some of the waste, the process still has serious limitations.
This legislation would allow the posting of standard approved insurance policies and endorsements on the insurance company's website, provided that the policy and endorsements must be accessible and remain that way for as long as the policy is in force. Expired policies and endorsements would be required to available for five years, and available upon request. The policies and endorsements must be posted in a manner that enables the policyholder to print and save the policy and endorsements using programs or applications widely available on the internet and free to use. The insurance company is required to provide with each declaration page a description of the exact policy and endorsement forms purchased by the insured; a method for the policyholder to obtain, upon request and without charge, a paper copy of the policy and the internet address where the policy and endorsements are posted.
Personal identifying information would not be posted. This legislation applies to insurance policy and endorsements as approved by the Department of Financial Services.
The benefits to the insurance consumer are many: first, for the prospective insurance buyer, he or she can look at the approved policies and better compare the provisions of competitors. Second, this legislation is environment friendly by reducing unnecessary and unwanted mailings. Third, there are no privacy concerns, as policy contracts and endorsements do not contain any personal identifying information. Fourth, electronic policy contracts create additional features that are not possible with paper contracts, for example, companies could augment the policies with FAQs, annotations, chat functionality for answering questions and other content to help
consumers better understand their policies. Enabling laws have been approved in at least thirteen other states.
Legislative history
New bill.
Fiscal implications
None.
Effective date
January 1, 2015.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.