H.B. 182 - Property Insurance Fairness

• Requires the North Carolina Rate Bureau to submit homeowners insurance data to the Department of Insurance including direct incurred losses, earned premiums, and expenses for the past five years, broken down by rate territory and policy category, with aggregated data posted publicly.

• Creates the North Carolina Recovery Finance Authority as a public agency authorized to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds to finance deficits in the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association resulting from catastrophic events, with debt service paid through catastrophe recovery charges on property insurance policyholders.

• Establishes a nine-member Recovery Finance Authority Board with members appointed by the General Assembly, Governor, and the Association, located administratively within the Department of Insurance but exercising independent powers.

• Reforms "consent to rate" practices for residential property insurance by requiring insurers to provide written notice disclosing the manual rate premium, actual premium charged, and percentage increase (capped at 250% above manual rates) with 30 days' notice.

• Requires catastrophe modeling used in property insurance rate filings to present data from multiple commercial hurricane simulation models that account for North Carolina Building Codes and amendments.

• Establishes a Joint Legislative Study Committee on Property Insurance Rate-Making to study the Rate Bureau's structure and operations, prevalence of consent-to-rate policies, and related issues, with final report due to the 2017 General Assembly.