NAIC Accelerated Underwriting Working Group Racing Ahead with ‎Regulatory Guidance

The Accelerated Underwriting (A) Working Group of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (“NAIC”) met on April 3, 2024, to discuss its workplan for finalizing proposed regulatory guidance for approval at the Summer National Meeting in August. A drafting group consisting of regulator representatives will spend the next few weeks revising the prior draft guidance in light of public comments previously received and to reflect the results of the Life AI/ML Survey[1] and the AI Model Bulletin[2] released and adopted respectively at last year’s Fall National Meeting in December. Procedurally, it is anticipated that the working group will expose version 2.0 of the draft guidance near the end of April for a 30-day public comment period expiring in May. This will be followed by a version 3.0 in June exposed for an additional open comment period followed by final public exposure in July and approval by the working group in August such that the Life & Annuities (A) Committee may adopt the final version at the Summer National Meeting in August.

The working group further seeks to finalize for approval at the Summer National Meeting a referral to the Market Conduct Examination Guidelines (D) Working Group to include additional guidance in the NAIC Market Regulation Handbook to alert market conduct examiners to novel data sources, methodologies, and processes life insurers may utilize in accelerated underwriting and recommend materials that examiners should review, e.g., disclosures, source data, as well as testing and/or auditing policies and procedures.

The working group is aware of the work of other NAIC working groups and task forces whose charges also relate to accelerated underwriting, including the newly formed Third-Party Data and Models (H) Task Force.

Locke Lord will continue to monitor accelerated underwriting, big data, and predictive modeling developments at the NAIC. If you have any ‎questions, please reach out to the author or your Locke Lord partner.‎

[1] NAIC Staff Report: Life Insurance Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Survey Results.

[2] NAIC Model Bulletin: Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems by Insurers.