The most substantive of the three is Senate Bill 10017, filed by Senator Bailey on April 22. It targets Section 4228 of the Insurance Law, the provision that sets the rules for how life insurance and annuity companies pay their agents and brokers. Under the current law, the superintendent is required to periodically adjust the caps on training allowance subsidies, but the statute does not fix a specific schedule. The bill would replace that open-ended timeline with a mandatory annual adjustment on January 1 of each year, increasing the prior year’s limits by the same percentage as the state’s minimum wage adjustment under the Labor Law. The superintendent would also retain the authority to approve training allowance subsidies exceeding those limits at any time. A similar indexing mechanism would apply to the caps on prizes and awards that companies can give agents and brokers. Those caps currently sit at five hundred dollars per single prize and two thousand dollars per agent per calendar year, with companies also permitted to pay a monthly prize worth up to fifty dollars. Beginning January 1, 2027, those prize and award thresholds would rise each year by the same minimum wage percentage adjustment.
New York targets insurance agents, adjusters, and auto premiums in three new bills
By Awais
