Okla. Agents Group Leader ‘Pleased’ With Legislative Session

Dan Ramsey, president and CEO of the Independent Insurance Agents of Oklahoma, says the recently convened 2008 state legislative session was a good one as far as the association is concerned.

Out of 4,000 bills considered by lawmakers, 83 of which addressed insurance issues, the IIAO actively supported six of them. “Three of them passed and one was handled by a bulletin from the Oklahoma Insurance Department, so we were quite pleased with the outcome this year,” Ramsey wrote in a recent newsletter to IIAO members.

HB 1959, which allows workers’ compensation insurer CompSource Oklahoma to purchase reinsurance for a policy endorsement to provide workers’ compensation coverage for employees of Oklahoma companies that are working out of state, is one of the bills supported by the agents’ group. It passed, was signed by the governor and becomes effective on Nov. 1.

Among the measures that the IIAO was instrumental in helping to defeat were several “that would have prohibited the use of credit as one of the underwriting tools to rate or underwrite personal lines,” Ramsey said.

Other defeated bills included HB 2692, which would have imposed $15 million in premium taxes on policyholders to fund rural fire districts; HB 2496, requiring all automobile liability policies to include coverage to pay for services rendered by a tow truck operator; and HB 3123, which would have allowed a personal surety rather than a performance bond to be used on certain government contracts.