The majority of legislatures around the country have closed up shop for the year, and, for the most part, the property-casualty insurance industry fared pretty well. This year saw more than 1,000 new state legislators finding their ways around state capitols, and educating this influx of freshmen on insurance matters was paramount to the industry. Perhaps a benefit reaped from the change in state legislative landscape this year was that the property-casualty insurance industry celebrated some fairly significant victories on the issues of rate modernization, tort reform and underwriting freedom.

While budget deficits and social issues received much of the attention of statewide media, the biggest news coming out of the states this year for property-casualty insurers concerned the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—and a section within it known as the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act (NRRA).

NRRA streamlines surplus lines insurance regulation by creating a system where taxation, regulatory authority and licensing authority would be controlled by the insured's domiciled state. It wasn't shocking that states balked at the thought of federal law taking control of not only a state's authority but its surplus lines taxes. So out of the NRRA, two state-based options were spawned: the Surplus Lines Insurance Multistate Compact, or “SLIMPACT Lite,” supported by the National Conference of Insurance Legislators, and the Nonadmitted Insurance Multistate Agreement or NIMA, a system backed by the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners.