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
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