View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2011/05/18/199066.htm

Oklahoma Converts to State Based Systems in June

The Oklahoma Insurance Department (OID) is changing its database systems to State Based Systems (SBS) during the month of June 2011. In order to prepare and complete the implementation, electronic services will have temporary downtime beginning May 27.

The department said it understands that this will take some extra preparation on behalf of the applicants, licensees, companies and CE providers and apologized for the inconvenience. But it said the transition will benefit the state, individuals and entities regulated and served by the Oklahoma Insurance Department.

Following is the schedule for license transactions: Beginning on May 27, 2011, at 6 a.m. through June 1, 2011, at 6 a.m., NIPR and Sircon will start turning off electronic applications for Oklahoma.

Services Turned Off:

• May 27 at 6 a.m. – Resident and Non-Resident electronic license applications for Oklahoma will be turned off.
• June 1 at 6 a.m. – Resident and Non-Resident Renewals, Appointments, Appointment Terminations and Address Change Requests will be turned off.

Services Turned On: June 1 at 6 a.m. – All gateway electronic applications for Oklahoma will have been temporarily shut off. Transactions may still be submitted via NIPR during the temporary shut off, however the transactions will be held in Awaiting Validation status and processed once the applications are turned back on; tentatively scheduled for 8 a.m. on June 20, 2011.

Services Uninterrupted:

PSI, the testing vendor for the OID will continue to schedule and administer examinations during the system downtime. The results of the examinations will be delayed in populating into the database system until June 13, 2011.

The Producer Database (PDB) will receive its last pre-conversion update on June 3 and will begin receiving updates from Oklahoma on June 20.

The following is the schedule for CE provider transactions: Beginning on May 17 at 6 a.m., Sircon will start to turn off electronic CE provider capabilities.

Services Turned Off:

• May 17 at 5 p.m.- All course submissions and course renewal submissions for Oklahoma will be turned off.
• May 31 at 12 a.m. – All course completions and course offerings will be turned off.

Services Turned On: June 13, 2011, 6 a.m. – All Electronic CE provider capabilities will be turned on.

Classroom Training for Licensees, License Administrators and CE Providers

To assist licensees, license administrators managers, CE providers and others handling licensing and CE for professionals in the insurance industry, the OID will host events offering a choice of 2 or 3 hours of Legislative Update Credit for FREE to showcase SBS and NIPR. Events will be held the following dates:

• June 14 in Oklahoma City, at Francis Tuttle Technology Center.
• June 15 in Tulsa, at Tulsa Technology Center.

Webinar Training for Licensees and License Administrators

To assist licensees unable to attend the classroom training but would like to receive training on SBS/NIPR two demo sessions will be provided via free webinars. Participation in the entire length of a session will qualify the participant for 1 hour of Legislative Update Credit towards their CE requirement. The webinar will be offered on the following dates:

• June 6 at 9:00 a.m.
• June 21 at 2:00 p.m.

Webinar Training for CE Providers

To assist CE Providers unable to attend the classroom training but would like to receive training on SBS/NIPR two demo sessions will be provided via free webinars. The webinar will be offered on the following dates:

• June 6 at 11:00 a.m.
• June 21 at 9:00 a.m.

Source: Oklahoma Department of Insurance