SEBELIUS SIGNS SEVERAL INSURANCE-RELATED BILLS INTO LAW

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, recently signed several insurance-related bills, including a measure which creates a self-audit privilege for insurers. House Bill 2357 allows insurers to undertake their own internal market conduct examinations with being penalized.

The new law is designed to encourage insurers to self-police their own compliance with laws and regulations without subjecting auditing documents to legal discovery or subjecting insurance auditors to deposition, interrogatory or other examination in litigation.

Sebelius also signed into law Senate Bill 100, which amends existing law KSA 39-935 to allow facilities to establish a risk management program.

Lastly, Senate Bill 161 amends the Kansas Tort Claims Act to expand the definition of “employee” to the extent that “employee” includes private nonprofit corporations or charitable or social service organizations, for claims arising from the performance of community service work when the court has assigned persons to perform community service work for a governmental entity.