Senate committee approves amendments requiring insurer group capital calculations, tighter confidentiality for stress-test data

The Senate Corporations Committee on Tuesday approved Senate File 50, a bill to amend Chapter 44 of the insurance code to require group capital calculations and liquidity stress tests for certain insurance holding companies and to impose stricter confidentiality protections for the resulting data.

The measure, presented by Jeff Root, Commissioner of Insurance, passed on a roll-call vote with five ayes and no recorded no votes. Commissioner Root said the provisions are intended to give state regulators a broader view of the financial condition of insurance groups so they can ensure insurers keep sufficient assets to pay claims.

The bill requires insurers that meet scope criteria to submit a group capital calculation — a consolidated look at capital across affiliated companies — and an NAIC-based liquidity stress test used to model how a group would fare under adverse claim scenarios. "The group capital calculation is sort of like what it sounds like. We're going to look at the capital held by this group of businesses, not just the individual…