Apr 14, 2016

Legislative session update

The three-month short session of the Connecticut Legislature is entering the home stretch before the session ends on Wednesday, May 4, 2016. It has been a busy session, in which the Legislature tackled some tough issues throughout the committee period. The joint Insurance and Real Estate Committee, as well as most of the other committees, have finished their sessions and have sent numerous bills to the floor to be included on the Senate and House calendars. The committees still in session are the Appropriations Committee and the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, which still are hard at work to solve the budget issues the state is currently facing. The committees already have created a plan to slash the current $220 million budget deficit, but they are faced with a potential $900 million deficit at the beginning of the new fiscal year, which begins on Friday, July 1, 2016. As the two committees attempt to balance this deficit, the rest of the Legislature is quiet, and it is expected to begin discussing other bills next week.

When discussions begin, several bills that PIACT is tracking will come up. H.B.5446 would mandate that all establishments with restaurant, cafe and tavern with liquor permits carry a liquor liability policy. PIACT endorsed the bill and provided testimony to the Insurance and Real Estate Committee back in February. However, the bill was never brought up for a vote by the committee, which effectively killed it for this session.

S.B.221, which concerns paid family and medical leave, was favorably voted out of the Labor Committee on March 10. The bill, which received more than 100 submissions for testimony on its public hearing date on March 7, would create a "Family and Medical Leave Compensation Trust Fund," through which employees would contribute a percentage of their weekly earnings, which would then be used to provide compensation to covered employees. To be eligible, a worker would need to be employed for at least one year by his or her current employer, and would need to earn at least $2,325 from one or more employers during the employee's highest earning quarter within the past five calendar quarters.

Another bill PIA is monitoring closely is H.B.5522, which proposes to change the definition of "collapse" of a building to include losses caused by decay of a building or any part of a building, that is hidden from view, or defective materials or construction methods used in the construction or renovation of a building or any part of a building. The Insurance and Real Estate Committee held a public hearing on March 7 to hear testimony both in support and opposition to the proposal. On March 15, the committee voted, in a close 10-9 vote, to send the bill to the floor for consideration. It is expected to be heard in both houses sometime in the next few weeks.

Finally, H.B.5523, which concerns insurance requirements for Transportation Network Cos., was favorably voted out of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee on March 17. PIACT submitted written testimony requesting that the mandatory uninsured/underinsured motorist limits for stages two and three be increased from the state minimum to $1 million combined single limit. The joint favorable bill did not include PIACT's recommended changes, but members of the committee agreed to consider those changes on the floor. Specifically, Uber asked for changes that would bring the bill more in line with the model language from the National Conference of Insurance Legislators, in an effort to perpetuate uniformity with the other states who have adopted the NCOIL model verbatim. The taxi industry requested a modification of the language to include livery vehicles in the bill, so that taxis and ride-hailing vehicles have the same advantages when it comes to rate calculation, ability to not use a meter and use of private vehicles. While the committee sent the original language out of committee, it is possible that some of these proposed changes could make it into the final draft during discussion on the floor.