An event update that says the in-person meeting in Phoenix has been canceled. The NAIC posted this cancellation notice on its website today.

The rumors that were spreading Tuesday were true: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is canceling the in-person version of its spring national meeting due to concerns about the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19 pneumonia.

The Kansas City, Missouri-based regulator group was preparing to start the meeting on March 2, 2020, in Phoenix.

Mike Consedine, the NAIC's chief executive officer, said today in a tweet that the NAIC will be moving the meeting proceedings to a virtual format.

"The important work will continue, but we'll now have to work smarter and safer," Consedine said in the tweet. "Like it or not, just as 9/11 did, #coronavirus has forever changed the world we live and work in."

The NAIC already holds many meetings through teleconferences.

The NAIC outlined the following virtual session schedule:

  • Working groups and subgroups will meet through conference calls from March 16 through March 31.
  • Task forces will meet through conference calls in early April.
  • Top-level committees will meet through conference calls the week of April 13.
  • The Executive Committee and the Plenary, the body that includes all voting members of the NAIC, will meet through a public conference call on April 20.
  • The NAIC will hold a public virtual meeting on states responses' to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak at 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time March 20.

The NAIC is a group for state insurance regulators. Its members are the top insurance regulators from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories.

The NAIC's Financial Stability Task Force, for example, has been preparing to get an update on the work of a subgroup that's trying to develop insurance company liquidity stress testing tools.

The Long-Term Care Insurance Task Force is looking at matters such as standards for the notices that go out to LTCI policyholders who are getting a choice between accepting low benefits or much higher premiums.

A Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act Working Group will be hearing efforts by regulators in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island to enforce mental health care and substance use disorder coverage parity standards.

Allison Bell

Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.

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