New York Insurance Department officials appear not to be backing down from imposing a $20,000 licensing fee for providers, according to attendees at a meeting with the department today. The fee is included in a set of emergency rules to implement the state’s new life settlement law.

States more commonly require $500 annual provider fees.

Russel Dorsett, president of the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA), previously told The Life Settlements Wire that he thought New York officials would be willing to negotiate over the fee.

The proposed rules also would require providers to pay $5,000 for biennial renewals.

The draft rules would also impose $10,000 licensing fees for intermediaries and $2,500 biennial fees. Brokers would pay $40 for licensing fees and the same amount for biennial fees.

Meanwhile, the department is inviting the public to comment on draft regulations to implement the new law. The state has also said that providers can now apply for approval of contract forms.

Source: New York Insurance Department, New York Insurance Department

Language that would have limited consumer notification about life settlements in Maine was stricken from a bill that was approved today by the state Senate.

The bill, LD 1523, would also revise the definition of stranger-originated life insurance under Maine law.

After passage by the state Senate, the bill is returning to the Maine House of Representatives where it could be heard as early as tomorrow.

The Maine Bureau of Insurance requested the legislation that would revise a life settlement law passed last year. Currently, insurers are required to notify certain policy owners of their option to settle life insurance policies when policy owners request to surrender their policy, to seek an accelerated death benefit, or when the insurer sends an initial notice that the policy may lapse.

Before the amendment, LD 1523 would have required the notification only for policies of at least $100,000 in death benefit. It would also have required notification to be sent at least 20 days before the lapse of the policy and expiration of any grace period for reinstatement, instead of when a policy lapse notice is initially sent.

Those provisions were opposed by some in the life settlement industry, which favors broader disclosure of the right to settle policies.

Sen. Margaret Craven, a Democrat from the city of Lewiston, introduced an amendment removing the provisions that would limit notifications and the amended bill passed the Senate.

The bill was previously approved by the House on March 16 without the amendment.

The version of the bill that will return to the House would only delete a sentence from Maine’s life settlement law that excludes “lawful settlement transactions” from the definition of stranger-originated life insurance.

If the House does not agree to the Senate’s amendment, it could vote to send the bill to a conference committee, said Colleen McCarthy Reid, analyst for the Maine State Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services. The bill would die if both sides do not come to agreement before the Legislature adjourns for the year. Its session is scheduled to end by April 21.

Source: The LifeSettlementReport