The New York State Department of Financial Services has taken the first step to amend the continuing-education requirements for insurance producers.
What’s new?
The DFS is proposing that all licensees be required to take at least:
- One hour of insurance law
- One hour of ethics and professionalism; and
- One hour of diversity, inclusion, and elimination of bias.
New flood insurance requirements
Additionally, the DFS proposed several changes related to flood insurance. Under the proposal, all property/casualty licensees would need to complete at least one hour of flood insurance instruction, whether they actively sell flood insurance or not. The producers that do actively sell flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program would need to complete an additional three hours of enhanced flood insurance training.
What’s next?
Currently, this regulation is in pre-proposed outreach. This is an informal comment period during which interested parties can review and comment on the draft. Per the DFS website, agencies or other interested parties can email DFS Principal Attorney Joana Lucashuk to submit comments on the draft. Comments are due by Thursday, May 20, 2021.
Following the conclusion of the outreach period, the proposed regulation will be published in the State Register for a formal comment period. This latter step is required per the New York State Administrative Procedure Act, and lasts for 60 days.
At the conclusion of the formal comment period, the DFS may adopt, revise or withdraw the proposal. If adopted, the final regulation will be filed with the Department of State and a Notice of Adoption will be published in the register. If the proposal is revised, the DFS would have to go through a second formal comment period, which would last 30 days.
If adopted in its current form, the amended regulation would go into effect Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022, and it would apply to all applicable license renewals on and after that date.
Are you or one of your employees not licensed yet? Remember: PIA Northeast has partnered with A.D. Banker & Co., to offer members prelicensing courses at a 5% discount.
Bradford J. Lachut, Esq.
Bradford J. Lachut, Esq., joined PIA as government affairs counsel for the Government & Industry Affairs Department in 2012 and then, after a four-month leave, he returned to the association in 2018 as director of government & industry affairs responsible for all legal, government relations and insurance industry liaison programs for the five state associations. Prior to PIA, Brad worked as an attorney for Steven J. Baum PC, in Amherst, and as an associate attorney for the law office of James Morris in Buffalo. He also spent time serving as senior manager of government affairs as the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, a chamber of commerce serving the Buffalo, N.Y., region, his hometown. He received his juris doctorate from Buffalo Law School and his Bachelor of Science degree in Government and Politics from Utica College, Utica, N.Y. Brad is an active Mason and Shriner.
