There are a few things we may never see again thanks to COVID-19. Free samples at the grocery store, infrequent cleaning of subway cars, cramped conference rooms, packed elevators, communal office pies and cakes, stigma around sick days and working from home, plastic ball pits for toddlers, buffet restaurants, paper menus, shaking (too many) hands and unpackaged dinner mints (okay, maybe those aren’t a thing any more), to name a few.
These probably were not great ideas in the first place, at least not during flu season.
There would seem to be equivalents in insurance regulation – wet signatures, certain paper consumer notices, hard-copy regulatory filings, notarization and in-person continuing education, examinations and office requirements.
Insurance regulators across the country have temporarily waived, on an emergency basis, certain of these requirements to varying degrees during the pandemic, to allow licensees and regulators to continue to serve consumers consistent with public health concerns.
Various states have also waived certain legal and regulatory impediments to real-time insurance transactions. For example, states have permitted temporary termination and limited extensions of coverage and mid-term retroactive refunds and other premium adjustments that more accurately reflected underwriting risk during certain stages of the pandemic.
