NAPSLO hires Director of Government Affairs

NAPSLO has named Steven P. Stephan, CPCU, ARe, as Director of Government Relations for the Association. In the new position Mr. Stephan will be responsible for the Association’s government affairs activities at the state level, including working with the NAIC, NCOIL, and other industry organizations and also assisting the Board on legislative and regulatory matters.

“We are glad to welcome Mr. Stephan to the NAPSLO organization and believe he will be a great addition,” said President Mac Wesson. “He will be able to assist Executive Director Dick Bouhan on the increasing amount of regulatory and legislation actions facing our industry.”

Previously Mr. Stephan was Assistant Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of Employer’s Reinsurance Corporation. He also served as Vice President and General Counsel of First Specialty Insurance Corporation, Westport Insurance Corporation and Coregis Insurance Company.

His duties included advising the organization on surplus lines statutes and regulations, agent broker and MGA laws; form and rate filing laws; data calls; monitoring new laws and regulation and evaluating the impact of new laws and regulations.

Prior to working for ERC for the past 16 years, he served as law clerk for The U.S. District Court in Kansas and also for a Missouri Supreme Court Justice. He received his law degree from the University of Missouri Law School in 1987 and his undergraduate degree from Central Missouri State University.

NAPSLO Issues White Paper on Compliance Issues

Two of the key regulatory issues facing the surplus line industry, multi-state compliance and premium tax allocation in a remittance, could be solved by developing a system of one-state filing for nonadmitted business and adopting an interstate compact, according to a white paper released this week by the Nation Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (NAPSLO).

The white paper, available on the NAPSLO web site, was prompted by the growing number of multi-state risks and surplus lines transactions that are being plagued by tax allocation, tax remittance and multi-state compliance problems.

The NAPSLO Board established a special committee of brokers, surplus lines company executive and surplus lines stamping office managers to examine and recommend ways of solving the surplus lines premium tax remittance and multi-state compliance difficulties surplus lines brokers face.

The Committee completed the report entitled: Regulation of the Surplus Lines Industry after Gramm-Leach-Bliley: The Future is Now and submitted it to the NAPSLO Board of Directors, who unanimously adopted the white paper. Following its adoption, the white paper was sent to the NAIC Surplus Lines Task Force.

The Future is Now addresses the opportunities and challenges as well as the problems and issues the surplus lines industry faces in overcoming the difficulties surrounding the current irrational and dysfunctional surplus lines tax remittance procedures and the duplicative and costly multi-state compliance requirements.

Membership Directory

NAPSLO membership directories are being mailed to NAPSLO members and copies are also available for download from the web site.

NAPSLO member ID and password are required to access the Members Only content.

A limited number of additional printed copies are available from NAPSLO.