A producer group is urging the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to get all states to use the National Insurance Producer Registry.
Shifting to NIPR, an electronic producer licensing system, "is the simplest solution" for achieving modernization and "demonstrates that a consumer-based, states-based system is a very good system," says Donna Pile, a Lexington, Ky., agent who is the immediate past president of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, Alexandria, Va.
The NAIC has been developing NIPR to avert the formation of a National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 calls for the federal government to organize NARAB, which would take the role of licensing producers over from the states, unless states meet producer licensing and reciprocity targets.
In many cases, the NIPR system can help producers get life, health and property-casualty licenses in as little as 24 hours.
The system already is in place in 47 states, and it is possible for all states to participate in the system within 2 years, Pie writes in a letter to Roger Sevigny, chair of the NAIC/Industry Producer Licensing Coalition.
