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This rulemaking amends a rule adopted by the Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS) in 2006 that specifies coverage of mental and nervous conditions.  Currently the rules allow carriers to exclude treatment of gender identity disorder in adults over the age of 18.  Senate Bill 2 (2007 Legislative Session) amended the definition of “sexual orientation” as applied throughout the statutes to include gender identity and in doing so, established a strong public policy of the state to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.  This rule which currently written excludes from the definition of mental or nervous condition (and thus the coverage mandated in ORS 743A.168), gender identity disorder in adults.  This exclusion appears to violate the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and must be removed from the rules.  This rule amendment is consistent with the Insurance Division Bulletin, INS 2012-1, issued today.

The temporary rulemaking includes corrections to internal references to statutes that were renumbered in 2007.

This rulemaking aligns licensing and continuing education rules to a new electronically-based system recently implemented by the Department of Consumer and Business Services. The rules also clarify that mechanical breakdown insurance requires a limited class insurance license rather than a limited class credit insurance license.

The Insurance Division of the Department of Consumer and Business Services recently transitioned from a paper-based system of licensing and tracking of continuing education requirements to an electronic system.  This system will benefit stakeholders of the division by eliminating data processing errors, reducing processing time, and reducing the number of fingerprint submissions that are rejected for quality reasons.  Failure to adopt these rules will result in harm to those who are affected by the rules – applicants, producers and those involved in continuing education programs because the process under the new electronic system will not be in sync with the rules.  In order to eliminate confusion to applicants, producers and continuing education providers, it is necessary that the rules be amended to align with the new system.

These rules implement the provisions of chapter 84, Oregon Laws 2012 (Enrolled Senate Bill 1547, 2012 Legislative Session), setting out the regulatory and procedural details to administer the new captive insurers program.  The rules include provisions that establish and clarify application requirements, annual reporting and audit requirements, documentation and recordkeeping requirements, and provisions to assure there is no conflict of interest by directors of captive insurers and their affiliates.

These rules allow captive insurers to locate in Oregon by providing the process for licensing captive insurers.

Upon adoption, these rules replace in their entirety temporary rules adopted on June 15, 2012.