Regulators Question Need For Travel Underwriting

If premiums fail to reflect the increased risk, other policyholders could end up subsidizing claims for the policyholders who travel to high-risk regions, Dicke said.

North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Jim Poolman, chair of the NAIC’s Life Insurance and Annuities Committee, asked Dicke if companies have looked for actual travel underwriting experience data.

Experience could be based either on actual data or on anticipated data, if data collection was insufficient because a particular region was in upheaval, Dicke said.

Florida Commissioner of Insurance Regulation Kevin McCarty said building bridges in Baghdad for 2 years is different from traveling in Israel for a week.

Insurers should make it clear why they are using information about travel to a particular country in underwriting, McCarty said.

Birny Birnbaum, executive director of the Center for Economic Justice, Austin, Texas, said travel underwriting is not justified actuarially, is contrary to public policy and has not been proven to have an effect on insurers’ solvency.

Birnbaum asked about whether life insurers will ban applicants who plan to travel to Detroit, Washington and other U.S. cities with high murder rates.

Robbie Meyer, a representative for the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, said restricting life insurers’ ability to consider travel in underwriting might hamper their ability to treat existing customers fairly.

Meyer recommended that regulators use the Unfair Trade Practices Act rather than market conduct examinations to address concerns about unfair denial of coverage.

Florida’s McCarty reported that some insurers have argued that the UTPA does not give regulators the authority to address the travel underwriting issue.