The Iowa Insurance Division says insurers and producers can give pens, keychains and other items away at the Iowa State Fair this summer after all.
The division put the fate of many, many boxes of insurance company and agency logo novelties in jeopardy in June, by releasing tough new anti-rebating language in Iowa Bulletin 08-11.
Because of the difficulty officials have had with defining the term “rebate,” “any goods or services offered to a policyholder or prospective policyholder which are not specifically incorporated as part of the policy contract and made a part of the pricing of the policy are rebates and therefore are prohibited under Iowa law,” Iowa officials write in the bulletin.
In theory, Iowa officials write in a new bulletin, the new interpretation of Iowa’s anti-rebating laws prohibits state fair novelty distributions.