A study resolution concerning the Board of Risk and Insurance Management resulted in extensive debate during Monday’s Senate banking and insurance committee.
The originating resolution came about as a result of the committee’s discussion surrounding Senate Bill 552 last month. If passed, the bill would have attempted to reform the practice of securing the state’s insurance.
Following an explanation from counsel, Sen. Corey Palumbo, D-Kanawha, opened discussion by thanking the committee for rejecting the proposed legislation and stating that he believed interim meetings shouldn’t be used to study BRIM. Sen. Mike Romano, D-Harrison, then built onto his fellow Senator’s statement by explaining that he’s found BRIM to be extremely difficult while practicing law in his daily life.
Sen. Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, then addressed the Senators to state that the main concept behind the proposed resolution was due to multiple requests being made to BRIM by specific government organizations throughout the state.
“I think we have a duty to study BRIM and how they’re paying out (the organizations),” Blair said. “We may not identity anything wrong with BRIM, but maybe the resolution will reveal what’s going wrong in other organizations.”
Blair further explained that while reviewing multiple claims to BRIM, he found the organizations in questions were reporting claims from anywhere between $0 to $100,000.
Sen. Harrison then addressed his fellow committee member to ask if the topic of the study should be potentially be shifted, resulting in Blair motioning for a conceptional amendment to strike language within the bill to provide that specific information be drawn from BRIM to ultimately see where the organization can be improved and strengthened.
Following discussion of the amendment, members motioned to adopt the Blair’s proposal and report the bill to the full Senate with the recommendation of passage.
