§ 31-3451.08 — Confidentiality; prohibition on announcements; prohibition on use in rate making.

District of Columbia § 31-3451.08

• Jurisdiction: District of Columbia
• Title 31: Insurance and Securities.
• Ch. 34A: Health Organizations RBC.

Text

(a) All RBC reports (to the extent the information 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 a health organization performed under this chapter and any corrective order issued by the Commissioner under examination or analysis) that are filed with the Commissioner shall be confidential and privileged, shall not be subject to subchapter II of Chapter 5 of Title 2 , shall not be subject to subpoena, and shall not be subject to discovery or admissible in evidence in a private civil action; provided, that the Commissioner may use the documents, materials, or other information in furtherance of any regulatory or legal action brought as a part of the Commissioner’s official duties.

(b) The Commissioner or any person who received documents, materials, or other information while acting under the authority of the Commissioner shall not be permitted or required to testify in a private civil action concerning any confidential documents, materials, or information subject to subsection (a) of this section.

(c) To assist in the performance of the Commissioner’s duties under this chapter, the Commissioner may:

(1) Share documents, materials, or other information, including the confidential and privileged documents, materials, or information subject to subsection (a) of this section, with District, state, federal, and international regulatory agencies, with the NAIC, and with District, state, federal, and international law enforcement authorities; provided, that the recipient agrees to maintain the confidentiality and privileged status of document, material, or other information;

(2) Receive documents, materials, or information, including otherwise confidential and privileged documents, materials, or information, from the NAIC and from regulatory and law enforcement officials of other foreign or domestic jurisdictions, and shall maintain as confidential and privileged any document, material, or information received with notice or the understanding that it is confidential or privileged under the laws of the jurisdiction that is the source of the document, material, or information; or

(3) Enter into agreements governing sharing and use of the information consistent with this subsection.

(d) No waiver of an existing privilege or claim of confidentiality in the documents, materials, or information shall occur as a result of sharing as authorized in subsection (c)(3) of this section.

(e) Except as otherwise required under this chapter, 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 a 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 health organization, or of any component derived in the calculation, by any health organization, agent, broker, or other person engaged in any manner in the insurance business shall be prohibited; provided, that if any materially false statement with respect to the comparison regarding a health organization’s total adjusted capital to its RBC levels (or any of them) or an inappropriate comparison of any other amount to the health organizations’ RBC levels is published in any written publication and the health organization is able to demonstrate to the Commissioner with substantial proof the falsity of the statement, or the inappropriateness, as the case may be, the health organization may publish an announcement in a written publication if the sole purpose of the announcement is to rebut the materially false statement.

(f) The RBC instructions, RBC reports, adjusted RBC reports, RBC plans, and revised RBC plans shall only be used by the Commissioner in monitoring the solvency of health organizations and the need for possible corrective action and shall not be used by the Commissioner for ratemaking, or 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 that a health organization or an affiliate is authorized to write.

Legislative History

June 18, 2003, D.C. Law 14-312, § 108, 50 DCR 306