§33-40-8 Confidentiality; prohibition on announcements, prohibition on use in ratemaking. - West Virginia Statutes

§33-40-8. Confidentiality; prohibition on announcements,

prohibition on use in ratemaking.

(a) All RBC reports (to the extent the information therein is not required to be set forth in a publicly available annual statement schedule) and RBC plans (including the results or report of any examination or analysis of an insurer performed pursuant hereto and any corrective order issued by the commissioner pursuant to examination or analysis) with respect to any domestic insurer or foreign insurer which are filed with the commissioner constitute information that might be damaging to the insurer if made available to its competitors and therefore shall be kept confidential by the commissioner. This information shall not be made public and/or be subject to subpoena, other than by the commissioner and then only for the purpose of enforcement actions taken by the commissioner pursuant to this article or any other provision of the insurance laws of this state. The information required by this article is specifically exempt from the requirements of chapter twenty-nine-b of this code.

(b) It is the judgment of the Legislature that the comparison of an insurer's total adjusted capital to any of its RBC levels is a regulatory tool which may indicate the need for possible corrective action with respect to the insurer, and is not intended as a means to rank insurers generally. Therefore, except as otherwise required under the provisions of this article, the making, publishing, disseminating, circulating or placing before the public, or causing, directly or indirectly to be made, published, disseminated, circulated or placed before the public, in a newspaper, magazine or other publication, or in the form of a notice, circular, pamphlet, letter or poster, or over any radio or television station, or in any other way, an advertisement, announcement or statement containing an assertion, representation or statement with regard to the RBC levels of any insurer, or of any component derived in the calculation, by any insurer, agent, broker or other person engaged in any manner in the insurance business would be misleading and is therefore prohibited: Provided, That if any materially false statement with respect to the comparison regarding an insurer's total adjusted capital to its RBC levels (or any of them) or an inappropriate comparison of any other amount to the insurers RBC levels is published in any written publication and the insurer is able to demonstrate to the commissioner with substantial proof the falsity of such statement, or the inappropriateness, as the case may be, then the insurer may publish an announcement in a written publication if the sole purpose of the announcement is to rebut the materially false statement.

(c) It is the further judgment of the Legislature that the RBC instructions, RBC reports, adjusted RBC reports, RBC plans and revised RBC plans are intended solely for use by the commissioner in monitoring the solvency of insurers and the need for possible corrective action with respect to insurers and shall not be used by the commissioner for ratemaking nor considered or introduced as evidence in any rate proceeding nor used by the commissioner to calculate or derive any elements of an appropriate premium level or rate of return for any line of insurance which an insurer or any affiliate is authorized to write.