Property and casualty insurance insurers certainly operate in a dynamic forms-driven environment. Application forms and related forms, notices, and disclosures, as well as advisory organization and proprietary policy forms and endorsements, play key roles in insurers’ underwriting and policy issuance functional areas. On the claims side, it is critical that insurers use current and accurate claims processing forms appropriate for the specific lines of business.
This year has seen significant property & casualty forms changes including revised advisory organization policy forms, new forms, changes in the individual states’ usage of those policy forms, as well as new and revised claims and other forms supporting the underwriting process. Across approximately fifty-eight advisory organization, or bureau, lines of business we have seen new and revised bureau forms this year number approximately 2,300, with the changes in the usage of the bureau forms exceeding 3,000. Additionally, changes to state or federal mandated forms, as well as other forms supporting the underwriting process, total almost 400 so far this year with most of those changes affecting the workers’ compensation claims process. Examples of the latter group of forms can be demonstrated by the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board’s August 2009 revisions to approximately forty forms. Reasons for those changes ranged from a change in the Board’s Chair and a change of address for the Buffalo processing center to substantive changes in certain doctor’s report forms. On the federal side, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration revised thirteen of its forms related to insurance certificates, surety bonds, and endorsements earlier this year. Cancellation and nonrenewal issues required some revisions to existing forms for many property & casualty lines of business. For year ending September 2009, over twenty-five cancellation and nonrenewal forms were newly created or revised for thirteen states. Reasons for such changes included legislative or regulatory directives, address changes of the insurance regulatory agencies, automobile assigned risk and FAIR plan program changes, as well as regulator requests or updated interpretations.
The volume of forms changes, coupled with the importance of using current forms, is one of the key areas of insurer compliance. Depending on the functional area involved and the lines of business covered, the work required to maintain that level of compliance can be substantial and often involves a number of sources regardless of the range of sources required.
Editor’s Recommendation
Editor’s Recommendation: Electronic forms and forms integration services that include maintenance, make managing forms changes and identifying needed forms easy.
