Certificate of Insurance Update

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On March 9, the IIAV Technical Committee, other interested agents, Bob Bradshaw and I met with the Virginia Bureau of Insurance represented by Mary Bannister, Deputy Commissioner Property & Casualty; Brian Gaudiose, Deputy Commissioner Agent Regulation & Administration; George Lyle, Principal Insurance Market Examiner; Mike Beavers, Principal Insurance Market Examiner; and Joanne Patton, Principal Market Examiner to discuss the many ugly issues and opportunities that present themselves daily to agents as the result of demands made by certificate of insurance holders.

Each agent had the opportunity and did discuss a specific "certificate" horror story. The Bureau of Insurance participants listened, asked excellent questions and contributed greatly to the meeting.

The end result was that they (the Bureau of Insurance) felt they needed to write an advisory letter regarding the proper use of certificates of insurance. As I write this article it is my understanding that the letter has been written and signed by Commissioner Cunningham and will be mailed very shortly to all licensed insurance carriers in Virginia. It is then their responsibility to send it to each of their appointed agents.

In our next issue of The Big I Virginia magazine I have written an in depth article about the March 9th meeting and the certificate of insurance issue. Included in that article will be a copy of the Bureau’s advisory letter. In this article we are including a summary of what other states have done to deal with this issue. As you can see, it is obviously a problem nationwide as 41 states (including Virginia) have taken some action to deal with it.


Joe Hudgins, CPCU (jhudgins@iiav.com), IIAV Vice President of Education & Technical Affairs