Innovative Insurance Filings in New York
Companies doing business in New York face difficult options when designing innovative products that need approval in New York. New York law and the Department's administrative guidelines provide for filing alternatives, but each has advantages and disadvantages when the product is an innovative one that the Department might not have seen or which might be new to the company. One approach is to file for full prior approval. The obvious advantage of this approach is that the Company has the benefit of a full vetting of the issues with the Department and all requested revisions are made before product launch. The major disadvantage is time. Currently, it is not unusual for review periods to exceed one year, which in the fast paced world of product development, is usually not acceptable. But another,less obvious, disadvantage is that even though many filings submitted for full prior approval are innovative ones, where the issues are complex, the Department still enforces its policy to close a file if all issues are not resolved with two rounds of correspondence.
However, another alternative is to request a determination of a particular issue prior to making the submission. This could either allow a certified submission or perhaps eliminate the problem mentioned above of having a complex issues that requires several rounds of correspondence result in a closed file. Unfortunately, experience shows that it can take quite a long time to receive a decision on issues submitted this way - and then there is still a filing to be made, which even on a certified basis means approximately 60 days.
A hybrid approach is to make the submission on a full prior approval basis, but clearly designate the file as an innovative product submission and request expedited review. It is recommended that the issues be addressed as comprehensively as possible in the filing so that the Department can get as clear a sense of what they are looking at as possible. One thing that often happens with innovative filings is that they are drafted with model laws and regulations in mind and it cannot be stressed too strongly that the submission should be NY-specific with references to NY laws and regulations.
