In early June, PIA National was joined by other industry trade associations in expressing concerns with a disclosure provision in the discussion draft of the “Lower Health Care Costs Act” that was released by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. This draft legislation contains multiple provisions aimed at targeting the rising cost of health care in America.

PIA National has concerns with Section 308, which refers to the “disclosure of direct and indirect compensation for brokers and consultants to employer-sponsored health plans and enrollees in plans on the individual markets.” In the letter, the industry trades point out that this section would require duplicative disclosures for agents and brokers who are already subject to state licensure laws that require disclosure of compensation to the client. These requirements have also been adopted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Producer Licensing Model Act.

Furthermore, under ERISA on the federal level, insurance carriers providing plans for groups over 100 participants already must provide information about agent compensation in a “Form 5500.” To subject insurance agents and brokers to another disclosure like the one proposed in the Senate HELP bill would be duplicative and burdensome.

PIA National supports the current state and federal disclosure requirements that are already in place and caution against the establishment of additional requirements. We will work with other industry organizations and the Senate HELP Committee to prevent the creation of duplicative and unnecessarily burdensome disclosure requirements.