There are too many horror stories about dealing with government bureaucracies, but here is a “shout out” to the State of Virginia as well as an important lesson to always keep trying.

VCIA and NRRA wrote letters regarding the proposed changes to the Virginia Fair Claims Act. The Act threatened to effectively eliminate any ability to write coverage on a “claims-made and reported” policy form and would have negatively impacted RRGs doing business in the state. Our letters addressed the fact that the language of the proposal could have been interpreted to include a requirement that all insurers must demonstrate prejudice in order to deny coverage based on the insured’s failure to comply with time-limited policy notice provisions.

Somewhat surprisingly, the letters generated a personal call to me from the Virginia State Corporation Commission the following day, and we were invited to work with them to fix the issue.  Drawing on the expertise of VCIA members Joe Holahan, Jon Harkavy, Kathy Davis and Skip Myers, we suggested a slight change to the proposal that satisfied the state’s needs while protecting RRGs. It’s heartening to me when a state responds quickly and openly to comments, and it’s a good reminder on just how vigilant we need to be!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Rich Smith
VCIA President