February 13, 2012
Alabama:
Effective February 16, 2012 Alabama is no longer requiring SSN to be entered on Appointment and Termination transactions for individuals. NPN will be required in place of SSN. FEIN is still required for Business Entities. The Insurer must submit a Notice of Producer Appointment through the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR).
Maryland:
The Maryland Insurance Administration recently became aware of a website offering licensing renewal services. This site, which tells users to run an executable file (.exe) to renew their licenses, is not in any way affiliated with the Maryland Insurance Administration. Running the file may cause severe damage to a computer. The correct website for the Maryland Insurance Administration is www.mdinsurance.state.md.us. At this site, companies and producers can conduct all business.
Michigan:
The State of Michigan changed examination vendors from Prometric to PSI effective January 1, 2012. In the fall of 2011, to prepare for the change of vendors, PSI, in conjunction with OFIR, conducted extensive item review workshops on every line of insurance for which OFIR requires a licensing examination. OFIR and its partner, PSI, have closely monitored the performance of all of our exams. Upon review of the Property & Casualty examinations, it was determined that further scrutiny was necessary as a limited number of items were not performing as anticipated. These items were reviewed by our subject matter experts and some of them were removed from the scoring matrix for various reasons. In order to be fair to the candidates who had already taken the examination, all failed tests results were reviewed and re-scored without the questions that were removed. This re-scoring resulted in a few candidates receiving a passing result, when they had initially received a failing result. PSI has notified all affected candidates and updated their examination records accordingly. PSI is also working with candidates that may have re-taken their examination while the review and re-scoring was taking place. Examination fees will be refunded by PSI where warranted.
