Virginia § 38.2-5508 - Confidentiality; prohibition on announcements; prohibition on use in ratemaking

§ 38.2-5508. Confidentiality; prohibition on announcements; prohibition on use in ratemaking

A. All RBC Plans and RBC Reports, to the extent the information therein is not required to be set forth in a publicly available annual statement schedule, which are filed with the Commission with respect to any domestic licensee or foreign licensee, constitute information that might be damaging to the licensee if made available to its competitors, and therefore shall be kept confidential by the Commission. This information shall not be made public nor shall it be subject to subpoena, other than by the Commission and then only for the purpose of enforcement actions taken by the Commission pursuant to this Act or any other provision of the insurance laws of this Commonwealth; however, the Commission may at its discretion disclose such confidential information to (i) a regulatory official of any state or country; (ii) the NAIC, its affiliate or its subsidiary; or (iii) a law-enforcement authority of any state or country. Any such disclosure by the Commission shall not constitute a waiver of confidentiality of such plans, reports, and information. As used in this subsection, RBC Reports and RBC Plans shall include the results or report of any examination or analysis of a licensee performed by the Commission pursuant to the provisions of this Act or by the insurance regulatory officials of another state pursuant to the provisions of a substantially similar risk-based capital statute.

B. The comparison of a licensee's Total Adjusted Capital to any of its RBC Levels is a regulatory tool which may indicate the need for possible corrective action with respect to the licensee, and is not intended as a means to rank licensees generally. Therefore, except as otherwise required under the provisions of this Act, 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 any radio or television station, or in any other way, an advertisement, announcement or statement containing an assertion, representation or statement ranking any licensee relative to other licensees solely on the basis of comparisons between Total Adjusted Capital and RBC Levels or any component derived in the calculation of RBC Levels, by any licensee, agent, broker or other person engaged in any manner in the insurance business would be misleading and is therefore prohibited. If any materially false statement comparing a licensee's Total Adjusted Capital to its RBC Levels, or any of them, or a misleading comparison of any other amount to the licensee's RBC Levels is published in any written publication and the licensee is able to demonstrate to the Commission with substantial proof the falsity or misleading nature of such statement, as the case may be, then the licensee may publish an announcement in a written publication if the sole purpose of the announcement is to rebut the materially false or misleading statement.

C. RBC Instructions, RBC Reports, Adjusted RBC Reports, RBC Plans and Revised RBC Plans are intended solely for use by the Commission in monitoring the solvency of licensees and the need for possible corrective action with respect to licensees and shall not be used by the Commission for ratemaking nor considered or introduced as evidence in any rate proceeding nor used by the Commission to calculate or derive any elements of an appropriate premium level or rate of return for any line of insurance which a licensee or any affiliate is authorized to write.

1995, c. 789; 2000, c. 47; 2001, c. 519.