Ohio Insurance Department to Make Electronic Filing Mandatory

Effective Dec.31, 2009, all insurance entities that do business in Ohio will be required to submit rate, rule and form filings for all lines of insurance electronically using the System for Electronic Rate and Form Filings, also known as SERFF, the state insurance department reported.

Ohio Department of Insurance Director Mary Jo Hudson issued the announcement by Bulletin 2009-11. She said 97 percent of all departmental filings are currently being submitted via SERFF.

The SERFF tool is made available to the states via the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), and includes many features that support moving filed products to market quickly.

Although the mandatory deadline is Dec. 31, 2009, those entities not already filing via SERFF are encouraged to immediately begin making arrangements to do so.

More information about SERFF, including the data hosting solutions, is available on the SERFF Web site at www.serff.com.

Any entity that will not be able to file all submissions via SERFF by Dec. 31, 2009, must provide an email notice to the Department no later than Nov. 1, specifying the reason why compliance with this requirement constitutes a hardship.

Notices of hardship or questions regarding property and casualty or title insurance filing submissions should be sent to property.casualty@ins.state.oh.us.

Notices of hardship or questions regarding life, health or managed care filing submissions should be sent to life.health.mcd@ins.state.oh.us.

Source: Ohio Department of Insurance, www.insurance.ohio.gov