Ask Tim; Industry News

​The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS)  announced today that it has formally adopted its proposed regulations on insurance for peer-to-peer car sharing arrangments. The new and amended rules took effect today.Peer-to-peer car sharing programs match individual vehicle owners who are willing to rent their vehicles to others with willing potential renters. The arrangement is normally done via a smartphone app or website. Turo is the best-known example of a peer-to-peer car sharing service.In 2021, the state Senate and Assembly passed and Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law the Peer-To-Peer Car Sharing Program Act​.  Amendments were enacted ​in February 2022, and the final version of…

​ Photo by Tom Good. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced last week that it has purchased $502.5 million in reinsurance from 18 carriers on potential flood insurance losses during 2023. The coverage will apply to portions of insured losses that exceed $7 billion from a single flood event. This is the seventh consecutive year that FEMA has purchased reinsurance on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP.) FEMA paid $90.2 million in premium for the coverage. Read more on the FEMA websiteSource

​Employers in debt to the New York State Insurance Fund (NYSIF) may now be able to arrange installment payment plans to settle what they owe, under a law that took effect last summer. If you insure any businesses with outstanding premiums due to NYSIF, you may be able to help them pay off their balances.State law makes an employer who has not paid its billed premium and assessments to NYSIF ineligible to purchase another policy. It also states that NYSIF is not required to offer insurance to an employer at least partly owned by someone who has an outstanding premium debt to it. The amendment…