Industry Perspective
on Licensing Practices
April 29, 2015
Areas to Explore:
Affiliation Forrest
Just-in-Time Jungle
Collaboration Canyon
Producer Badlands
Hierarchical Hills
Termination Cliff
In-Sync Sea
Uniformity Mountains
Audience Ocean
Affiliation Forrest
When attempting to confirm with which business entities a producer is affiliated,
is there a way for industry members to view business entity affiliations
associated with a producer’s license online as opposed to having to access
the full listing of a particular business entity’s affiliations and scrolling
through to find the specific producer?
When a producer’s license expires, is it a requirement for a business entity to
cancel the business entity affiliation? Or is the business entity affiliation
automatically cancelled due to the license expiration?
Collaboration Canyon
Recently, there is evidence of increased collaboration between regulatory
entities such as FINRA and state insurance regulators to share information
regarding barred individuals. This is a great example of collaboration among
existing regulatory entities with the goal of improving consumer protection.
What are your thoughts regarding these collaboration efforts?
Regulators, how do you collaborate with your state securities counterparts
today?
What other opportunities remain for regulatory entities and/or industry
members to collaborate together to better protect consumers?
Hierarchical Hills
In the insurance industry today, distribution systems are becoming more and
more complex with multiple hierarchical levels often involved in the product
distribution process. How have these more complex hierarchical structures
impacted your company and what challenges have they caused from a
producer licensing or agreements perspective? How have you overcome
some of these challenges?
In-Sync Sea
There are many ways to ensure your producer licensing, appointment and
affiliation records remain in sync with state insurance department records.
What steps do you take to ensure your records remain in sync with state
insurance department records? What has worked well? What has not
worked so well?
Just-in-Time Jungle
Recently, just-in-time appointments have once again come to the forefront of
the producer licensing discussion. The NAIC Producer Licensing Working
Group has taken up this topic in 2015. From an industry perspective, what
would you like to share with the working group and our regulators as they
explore this topic?
Regulators, what are your thoughts regarding this topic and what would you like
to share with our industry members in attendance today?
Producer Badlands
A critical part of the producer onboarding process is completing a thorough
investigation of a producer’s background and qualifications. From your
perspective, what are the key components of your producer screening
process?
For those carriers who have adopted a just-in-time appointment process, at
what point or points do you conduct the producer background review?
Has your company or state instituted an evergreen process in which you
periodically check the background of your actively appointed producers? If
so, what has worked well with this process and what has not worked so well?
Termination Cliff
There appear to be variances and consequences that exist regarding the timing
of terminating a nonresident license. For our regulators, is it better to
complete the paperwork to surrender a nonresident license? Or is it okay to
simply let a nonresident license lapse by not renewing it when the expiration
date arrives?
What process does your company follow when considering an appointment
termination for cause?
Uniformity Mountains
Over the years, much progress has been made by state insurance departments in
adopting uniform and reciprocal producer licensing processes. From your
perspective, what, if any, uniformity or reciprocity challenges remain that
should be addressed?
Which non-uniform producer licensing processes cause the most challenges for
your company? What actions has your company taken to deal with the
challenges caused by these non-uniform processes?
Audience Ocean
What areas not covered today would you like to explore?
For more exploration and discovery,
attend the
2015 SILA National Education Conference