President Tom Albrecht, Southern Insurance Underwriters, CMGA, and Executive Director Bernie Heinze held a series of meetings in the US Senate last Thursday. Enhancing the AAMGA’s presence on Capitol Hill in providing information to elected representatives and their staffs, the meetings also included an effort to support the initiatives underlying Senate Bill 929, the “Non-Admitted and Reinsurance Reform Act.”

Meetings were held with the legislative assistants for Senator Mel Martinez, (R. FL), who co-sponsored and introduced the Bill with Senator Bill Nelson (D. FL), Senator Jeff Sessions (R. AL) and his chief of staff, and with legislative staff members on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

The momentum continues to be strong in the Senate to move the legislation forward to a hearing by August 2008. Support remains strong for the Bill, which also passed in the House of Representatives last session by a vote of 417 – 0. The initiative will, among other needed reforms, allow multi-state surplus lines commercial insurance placement premium taxes to be paid in the home state of the insured policyholder. At present, surplus line premium taxes must be paid according the proportionate share of the risk residing in each state and, then, in accordance with each state’s unique surplus lines premium tax.

The AAMGA Governmental Affairs Committee continues its work with NAPSLO, Big “I”, RIMS, RAA and other industry groups in to move the legislation to passage in this Session of Congress. This includes an effort to document the dollar costs of compliance, collect anecdotal stories on the difficulties encountered in computing and paying surplus lines taxes, and in providing additional information to Senate Staff to increase their knowledge on the excess and surplus lines market generally, and the need for this reform legislation specifically. If you can provide any further details, please e-mail them to bernie@aamga.org.