A life insurance producer group is supporting a proposed fingerprint collection program, but groups representing life insurers, property-casualty insurers and property-casualty producers are demanding changes.
The groups are reacting to a draft of the "Authorization for Criminal History Record Check Model Act," which is under consideration by the Market Regulation & Consumer Affairs Committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo.
The model draft calls for the NAIC to control the fingerprint database, and it states that "fingerprints and necessary identification information sent by a state commissioner to the NAIC shall not be subject to a subpoena, other than one issued in a criminal action or investigation, and shall be confidential, and not used in a civil action."
In 2002, the NAIC suggested that it and insurers could share control over a National Insurance Producer Registry that would be responsible for keeping fingerprints. But Andrew Beal, NAIC general counsel, recently said the NAIC decided that the confidential nature of the database requires that it be kept under NAIC authority.
The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va., is supporting the advancement of the fingerprint model act.
The model would streamline the fingerprinting process for producers with "a printed once, then done approach," and it would help state regulators weed out "bad apples," by giving them access to Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal histories, says Michael Gerber, a vice president at NAIFA.
Some groups want the fingerprint database to include prints for insurance company officers and directors as well as producers.
To keep that concern from slowing advancement of the proposed model, NAIFA says the NAIC could start by setting up a database for producer fingerprints and separate out the officers-and-directors issue for further study.
Other groups are criticizing the proposed model.