Committee clears bill to allow premium finance companies to accept electronic payments and pass processing costs to borrowers

The House Calendar and Rules Committee voted to return Senate Bill 0766/House Bill 0772 to the floor after approving a motion to take the measure back up by a two-thirds vote.

Representative Powers said the bill updates the Premium Finance Company Act of 1980 to allow premium finance companies to accept electronic payments, including credit cards, and to pass on the actual third-party cost of processing those electronic payments to borrowers and to collect a one-time bad-check fee. "The senate bill, and house bill 772, it's a premium finance company act of 1980, does not address the use of electronic payments like credit cards, and all this bill does is, allow electronic payments, including credit card, and permits a premium finance company to pass the actual third party cost for processing electronic payment onto the borrower and permits a premium finance company to collect a 1 time bad check fee charge," Representative Powers said as he renewed his motion.

Leader Camper asked whether the bill had been amended since it was first considered on the floor. Representative Powers replied, "No. There's no amendments, on the bill at all. It's the same bill." The committee then conducted a roll call vote on the motion to return the bill to the floor. The clerk reported 17 ayes and 3 no's, meeting the two-thirds threshold required to return the measure to the floor. The committee recorded the outcome as approved and directed that the bill be placed on Monday's regular calendar.

The committee's action does not itself change the substance of the bill; it only approves returning the bill to the full floor with the same text that had been previously considered. The motion required and met a two-thirds vote to bring the bill back to the floor for further consideration.