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Committee weighs bill to restore statewide publication of insurers’ abstracts
Summary
Supporters told the Senate Industry and Business Committee that House Bill 1398 would preserve a century-old practice of distributing insurers’ annual abstracts across all North Dakota newspapers; the Insurance Department argued the abstracts are limited, digital annual statements exist and proposed alternative consumer notices.
The Senate Industry and Business Committee heard testimony on House Bill 1398 on March 17, a proposal to require insurers’ annual abstracts to be published across North Dakota’s newspapers rather than concentrated in a small set of papers.
Proponents said the change preserves a practice used since the 1930s and protects rural readers’ access to limited financial information about companies that insure them. Cecile Wurman, executive director of the North Dakota Newspaper Association, told the committee the Insurance Department this year directed that abstracts be printed in only eight papers, a change that will cut smaller weeklies and their readers out of that distribution. “This cuts out most rural people, even though small town weekly newspapers often have more readers,” Wurman said.
Supporters and several local publishers argued the abstracts have public value during a period of…
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