Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Lamar House of Commerce and Economic Development. It is Thursday, 01/15/2026, at 01:10 in the afternoon. So we're coming back to have some testimony on H-six 48, which we refer to as the DFR housekeeping bill. I think, Chris, do you want to take the Sure. Banking

[Jamie Feehan (on behalf of APCIA)]: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am Jamie Fian, I'm with Premier, and this afternoon on behalf of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. You may recall from last session that APCIA is a national trade association of over a thousand member companies that write all lines of P and C in Vermont, personal and commercial, and also including workers' compensation. They have local members, they have national members, they have regional members, and collectively they write approximately little a more than two thirds of the market, the PNC market in Vermont. Thanks for the opportunity to, speak to this, h six forty eight, which is the department's sort of annual housekeeping bill, as we refer to it. I'll be speaking to four sections of the bill impacting PNC insurers. The first is section 44 found on page 65, and this is regarding the option for mutual insurance companies to continue to use the word mutual in the event they ever form a mutual insurance holding company as part of a reorganization of their family of companies. This is a positive omission, filling an omission in the Vermont statute. Disoption's found in other states. Mutual, some of whom have been around for well over a hundred years, including two right here in Montpelier, that have brand name recognition investment in that, recognition among policyholders, potential policyholders, others. So having that option for a mutual to continue to use mutual in its name in event, as I say, of that reorganization is a positive thing. So we support that. Section 45 is related to filing quarterly statements with the department. I checked with companies, and it's my understanding from hearing from them that this is already existing practice with the department, that these statements are required and filed. I guess it's sort of filling a statutory need that may have been identified by the department or perhaps during its accreditation review by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. And so we reviewed the language. There are no new requirements asked of companies as what's proposed here. Consistent. No, no, no controversies there. Section six excuse me, Section 47 is related to unfair discrimination, and this is amending what's known as the Insurance Trade Practices Act, which lists 23 or so different sort of specified actions related to insurance. It really reflects, in large part, the highly regulated nature of insurers by the department. But in this instance, it's regulating or updating the unfair discrimination provision and protected classes. And honestly, when I first saw this, my reaction was, really? This isn't already in law? So, I mean, you know, it's something that is regulated as such. Companies are, you know, pursue already doing this. And so if this is filling an omission, that's fine. I'm with us. And the last is found a little bit later. It's section 57 on page 83, and this is regarding the insurance supervisory and regulatory fine. I may have a couple of those words backwards. But this is related to monies that the department receives from insurers, from fees, assessments, etcetera. And it, of course, retains what it needs for regulatory purposes. But those monies in excess are transferred every year to the general fund for you all to decide what you want to do with it elsewhere. And I should note, know, that transfer is pretty sizable annually from DFR and the insurance side to the general fund. My understanding, this is a simple lift from one second of the statute, a move to another, with no changes whatsoever. So obviously, that's a purely technical amendment with no position, no questions, no concerns. From our perspective. Appreciate it. Thank

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: you.

[Chris D'Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Good afternoon. Mister chairman, committee members, for the record, Chris Delia, president of the Vermont Bankers Association. We were talking earlier that it was kinda calm this morning, so we thought we might spice it up a little

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: bit, maybe. But I want to Oh, the deputy commissioner liked that. Happy to hear that. He's excited about it. Ecstatic. So obviously,

[Chris D'Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: there are a lot of provisions in the bill that deal with the banking sections of statute. Many, many, many of those provisions are fairly technical and obviously we're supportive of those changes. I want to acknowledge the partnership and working relationship that we have with the department because the sections dealing with board governance and loan authority were topics that were raised by my membership and working with DFR as we've done in the past. We reached consensus, and that's the language that before you today, and I'm greatly appreciative of that. I've been with the association for twenty three years, and we've never looked at these statutes in twenty three years, and it goes way back beyond that. So it is interesting to take a step back with a relatively new entry into the marketplace about three or four years now who has a different perspective on how things are actually operating out there or could operate. So those changes in both governance and loan authority really take us into some best practices that are out there without in any way compromising the regulatory authority that the department has on these institutions. So we're appreciative of the partnership and the consensus that we reached, and we're hopeful that you can agree with what the proposals are.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for Chris? Great. Thank you. Good

[Carrie Allen (President, Association of Vermont Credit Unions)]: afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Marcotte and committee members. I'm really happy to be here. I am Carrie Allen, the new president at the Association of Vermont Credit Unions. Many of you probably knew my predecessor of many years. Joe Bergeron retired at the end of 2025. I'm I'm excited to be at the association. We are the trade association that represents Vermont Credit Unions, which there are 14 credit unions, soon to be 13 in the state of Vermont, and both federal and state chartered credit unions. We were really pleased to have the opportunity to work with DFR and our credit union membership to discuss some of these modernizations in the statute. As you heard testimony this morning, some of this is trying to bring in alignment with what we see in federal statute. And some of this actually allows some creative innovation and some flexibility in what was general practice as it relates to credit unions. So we are very pleased to see these move forward and certainly happy to answer any questions, but we appreciate your consideration of this housekeeping bill.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Questions for Carrie? Thank you.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So I think we have this on the schedule for tomorrow after the floor to vote it out. I know there's discussions and some talks about fees in there, so it will have to go up to up to to ways and means. I've already alerted the chair. Kirk should be reaching out to you. I know she's reached out to Maria already, so sometime next week, I suspect it will be on the floor. Thanks. So thank you all. Thank you for everyone. Maria, thank you for your work on this. And Joe and Aaron and and everybody at DFR, thank you as well. And everybody that worked on it, Carrie, Chris, and Jamie. See what should have a smooth sailing on the floor. Committee, Edye and I were at a chair's, a vice chair's meeting with appropriations at lunchtime. There's an appropriation that's along with Jay Follis created a new document that they have given to all the agencies and departments on how to handle what everybody's looking for, what appropriations is looking for and what the policy committees are looking for as well when they come to present when we start talking about the budget. So that document we will get soon, and it'll be passed out to all committee members so that you can see what appropriations are looking for. There's also another document they developed on how suggestions on how we as members of policy committees can interact with the departments and agencies as well. That'll be coming along shortly too. So I would say the budget governor is gonna present the budget on Tuesday. We will start bringing in people if we have any holes next week and the following week to do our due diligence on the budget as well. So just to give you that heads up. Nothing on budget adjustment there that affects us at all? That sounds piece in there Yeah. From the agency of commerce, and it was dealing with. That is it. So we get off scot free budget adjustment this year. And anything else? I expected this to freeze into floor time, so I I think we're we're done. Remember, we have a bill on the floor today, the captain bill, Kirk White, so be on the floor to support them as well. And we'll be done for the day. So I think yeah, fine. The printer,

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: if we have anything printed, we need to send it to Tony and not use the printer on his floor. We can talk about that a little bit more on how to do that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Not to be confused with this, Tony, who can't help you.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: I'll tell you about how to check here and send this out to Tony. Yes, I can send you the email so you can copy right. Oh, you just email it. And then it's a lot easier to get us. Great. I'll get a schedule or you can have them send the page out quicker. Great. Excellent. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Is there

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: a similar issue around the liposuction lens spot here? Don't know. Okay. I only know about the thirty's. Sounds like twenty years. Yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I guess this one's, like, being overused.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Also cheaper to use it. He's talking. That's the snip.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. It's probably me. They're probably tied for the heat. Yeah. K. So let's do that. Anybody have anything they want to share? We have number tomorrow at 09:00. Our legislative interns will be here. I hope everyone has looked at committees that you liaison with so that you can just fill us in very short. Remember, we only had thirty minutes. Most of that generally gets taken up by the.