State insurance and banking regulators

Summary

The State insurance, banking and securities regulators were appropriate governmental authorities in the statutory sense: each holds delegated power over the commerce it regulates, and each used that power in March 2020 to change how the financial-services trade operated, in most States by binding order or emergency regulation and in the remainder by directives issued under emergency statutes and enforced through the examination and unfair-trade-practice machinery. The instruments in this folder fall into five groups. First, the premium-payment moratoria and grace-period orders: New York's Executive Order 202.13 and the Superintendent's consolidated emergency regulation adding 11 NYCRR 229 (Ex. NY-101) imposed a 60-day moratorium on cancellation, non-renewal and conditional renewal of property/casualty policies and a 90-day life-insurance grace period for policyholders demonstrating COVID-19 hardship; Ohio's Superintendent ordered a 60-day grace period for all property/casualty, life and long-term care premiums (Bulletin 2020-07, Ex. 108; replaced by the encouragement of Bulletin 2020-12 on October 2, 2020, Ex. 111, which expired with the Ohio emergency on June 18, 2021, Exs. 078 and 112); Maryland's Commissioner activated the emergency regulations of COMAR 31.03 to suspend individual health-plan cancellations for nonpayment from July 30, 2020 and renewed the suspension five times, the last on May 24, 2021 for 60 days into the third quarter of 2021 (Exs. 029, 031, 032); Illinois requested a moratorium on cancellations and non-renewals of consumer property/casualty policies through April 30 and then May 29, 2020 under Executive Orders 2020-10, -18 and -32 (Exs. 097, 098); Washington's Commissioner ordered a minimum 60-day grace period for health and dental plans (Exs. WA-096, 041) and Texas, Maryland and Massachusetts expected every carrier to defer premiums and forgo cancellation (Exs. 014, 023, 101). Second, the health-coverage orders that changed the operation of every payer and every provider: Washington's Emergency Order 20-01 (cost-free testing, Ex. 040) was extended eighteen times, through October 3, 2021 (Exs. 046, 099), and Emergency Order 20-06 (balance-billing protection for out-of-network COVID-19 testing, Ex. 042) was extended into September 2021 (Ex. 045); Washington's Emergency Order 21-02 (June 2021) required carriers to cover vaccination consultations without cost sharing from July 1, 2021 (Ex. 044); New York's Circular Letters 6, 8 and 17 (2020) mandated telehealth coverage and suspended utilization review for 90 and then 60 days (Exs. 002, 004, 006); Massachusetts Bulletins 2020-04, 2021-08 and 2021-10 implemented the Governor's telehealth order and carried the testing and telehealth-parity expectations past the end of the Massachusetts emergency on June 15, 2021 into September 2021 (Exs. 100, 104, 105); Ohio, Connecticut, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas issued the same class of directive in March 2020 (Exs. 074, 107, 038, 073, 055, 013). Third, the workers' compensation instruments: California's Executive Order N-62-20 (May 6, 2020) made any COVID-19 illness of an employee working outside the home presumptively compensable for injuries from March 19 through July 5, 2020 (Ex. 047; codified and extended by SB 1159 from September 17, 2020); Kentucky's Executive Order 2020-277 (April 9, 2020) entitled employees removed from work by a physician for occupational exposure to temporary total disability payments even where the employer denied liability (Ex. 050); the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation required carriers to honor 90-day pharmacy supplies and tolled medical-billing deadlines from March 25, 2020 to March 1, 2021 (Exs. 016, 020) and suspended the work-search rules for supplemental income benefits from March 27, 2020 until August 2, 2021 (Exs. 017, 021); Maryland and Texas directed mid-term premium audits and payroll exclusions for furloughed workers (Exs. 019, 026, 027); Wisconsin's Commissioner summarized the first-responder presumption of 2019 Wisconsin Act 185 (Ex. 058). Fourth, the banking instruments: New York DFS required every regulated institution to file a pandemic preparedness plan within 30 days of March 10, 2020 (Exs. 001, 007), directed mortgage servicers to forbear payments for 90 days (Ex. 010, made mandatory by 3 NYCRR 119, Ex. NY-100), and urged fee waivers and payment accommodations for consumers and small businesses (Exs. 008, 009, 011); the Texas Banking Commissioner proclaimed on March 16, 2020 that banks could close facilities as needed, moved examinations offsite and suspended new examinations until June 2020 (Exs. 083, 087); Michigan DIFS told banks, credit unions, consumer-finance licensees and insurers that under Executive Orders 2020-21, 2020-42 and 2020-59 work was to be done remotely to the fullest extent possible and in-person work only under the orders' conditions (Exs. 079, 080, 089, 090, 091), and on October 19, 2020 directed compliance with the MDHHS emergency orders and MIOSHA emergency rules that replaced the Governor's orders (Ex. 095); Maryland's Commissioner of Financial Regulation authorized temporary branch and lobby closures on notice, implemented the Governor's foreclosure moratorium and set the foreclosure re-start dates of 2021 (Exs. 034, 036, 037); Alabama's Superintendent of Banks issued the parallel guidance (Exs. 067, 068). Fifth, the securities relief orders, adopted on the NASAA model by West Virginia, Delaware, New Hampshire, Colorado, Maine, Georgia and Washington (Exs. 060 to 066, 069) and by Kentucky (Ex. KY-060): displaced broker-dealer agents and investment adviser representatives could work from unregistered locations and firms could open temporary branch offices without registration, which is the regulators' own record that the offices of the securities trade were closed and its workforce dispersed. Florida's Office of Financial Regulation tolled licensing and filing deadlines for money services businesses, mortgage licensees and securities registrants by emergency order (Exs. 051, 053, 054). By quarter: 2020 Q2 holds the whole first wave (every instrument dated March through June 2020); 2020 Q3 and Q4 hold the extensions (Washington's monthly extensions, Maryland's renewals, Ohio Bulletin 2020-12, Massachusetts Bulletins 2020-30 and 2020-33, Michigan Bulletin 2020-41, Georgia's securities order of October 30, 2020); 2021 Q1 and Q2 hold the continuing Washington orders, Maryland Bulletins 21-05, 21-10 and 21-12, Texas DWC Bulletin B-0004-21, Maryland's foreclosure re-start guidance and Ohio's June 18, 2021 transition; 2021 Q3 holds, in force on July 1, 2021, Texas Bulletins B-0007-20 and B-0008-20 (until September 20, 2021), Texas DWC Bulletin B-0012-20 (until August 2, 2021), Washington Emergency Orders 20-01 and 20-06 (extended to September 5 and then October 3, 2021), Washington Emergency Order 21-02 (compliance from July 1, 2021), Maryland Bulletin 21-12 (60 days from May 24, 2021), New York's 3 NYCRR 119 as amended (Ex. NY-100), Massachusetts Bulletins 2021-08 and 2021-10 (August 31 and September 7, 2021) and Ohio Bulletin 2021-03.