Senate Bill 53 Summary

• Establishes a new chapter (IC 27-2-23) creating a privilege for voluntary internal insurance compliance audits conducted by insurers to identify, prevent, or promote compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

• Makes insurance compliance audit documents privileged and non-discoverable in civil or administrative proceedings, with limited exceptions for fraud, failure to take corrective action, or non-privileged underlying documents.

• Requires individuals who discover alleged criminal violations during audit preparation to report them to the insurer within 30 days, with the insurer forwarding the information to the insurance commissioner; knowing failure to report is a Class A misdemeanor.

• Protects audit documents provided to the insurance commissioner as confidential information that cannot be shared with other parties and may only be used to determine if disclosed defects have been remedied or if corrective action plans are in place.

• Allows courts to compel disclosure of audit documents only after in camera review if the privilege is asserted for fraudulent purposes, the material is an original underlying corporate record, or the insurer failed to undertake reasonable corrective action within a reasonable period.