Insurance Market Shifts Squeeze Product Experience Studies

If too few insurers are interested, the program managers may have to reprioritize, MacDonald said.

Insurers’ Interests

MacDonald noted that regulators want studies about topics such as long-term care insurance claims and individual disability insurance claims, but that insurers are not as interested in those topics.

Most issuers of long-term care insurance have stopped writing new business and, for them, providing experience data is complicated, according to the presentation.

Similarly, in the individual disability insurance market, the number of issuers is small and compiling data is complicated.

MacDonald suggested that regulators could help by talking about their data priorities, encouraging insurers to participate in Experience Study Pro studies, and, possibly, having the NAIC help fund the studies.

Paul Lombardo, a Connecticut regulator who serves on the Health Actuarial Task Force, said he and a Michigan regulator on the task force would look for ways to help the SOA and long-term care insurance issuers continue to provide experience study data.

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