OHIO LEGISLATIVE SERVICE COMMISSION
Office of Research Legislative Budget
www.lsc.ohio.gov and Drafting Office
S.B. 256 Final Analysis
134th General Assembly
Click here for S.B. 256’s Fiscal Note
Primary Sponsor: Sen. Wilson
Effective Date: July 21, 2022; travel insurance provisions effective October 19, 2022
Effective Date:
Yosef Schiff, Attorney
SUMMARY
Travel insurance
 Adds additional regulations and procedures relating to the premium tax that travel
insurers must pay tax on travel insurance premiums.
 Subjects all persons authorized to sell travel insurance to the Unfair and Deceptive
Practices Insurance Law.
 Imposes new requirements on the materials that must be provided to consumers when
purchasing travel insurance.
 Specifies when a travel insurance policy may be canceled without penalty, allowing
15 days for cancellation if fulfillment materials are delivered by postal mail and ten days
for all other methods of delivery.
 Adds oversight of travel administrators to the Limited Lines Travel Insurance Agents
Law.
 Designates travel insurance as inland marine insurance for purposes of rates and forms.
Electronic signatures
 Allows insurers to comply with any signature requirement via an electronic signature.
Unfair and deceptive practices
 Designates offering “free” insurance as an inducement to purchasing another policy of
insurance as an unfair and deceptive practice.
 Authorizes insurers to offer free “value-added” products that meet specified
requirements as an incentive to purchase insurance.
 Authorizes insurers to offer noncash items, such as meals or charitable donations made
on behalf of the consumer, as an incentive to purchase insurance.
 Allows insurers to conduct raffles or drawings to the extent permitted by state law.
June 10, 2022
Office of Research and Drafting LSC Legislative Budget Office
Insurance holding companies
 Provides for a group capital calculation requirement to be imposed on insurance holding
companies as a way of assessing the ratio of assets to liabilities across the entire holding
company.
 Imposes a liquidity stress test requirement as a way of predicting how insurers would
fare under various stresses, given the insurer’s current allocation of assets.
 Adds to the standards imposed on transactions to which insurance holding companies
are a party relating to bonds, information held by affiliates, proprietary documents,
confidential information, and information sharing.
Nonforfeiture amount
 Reduces the minimum interest rate used to calculate the nonforfeiture amount on
annuities that have yet to payout any amounts, from 1% to 0.15%.
Title insurance joint ventures
 Revises the law stipulating that, if a title agency that is a joint venture is set to dissolve
or terminate on a specified date, all members of the joint venture must be allowed to
join any successor joint ventures, to provide that the percentage of ownership in the
successor must not be based on the percentage of title insurance business referred to
the original joint venture.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Travel insurance .............................................................................................................................. 3
Travel retailers............................................................................................................................. 3
Single price for multiple features ................................................................................................ 4
Materials...................................................................................................................................... 4
Cancellation ................................................................................................................................. 5
Unfair and deceptive practices ................................................................................................... 5
Premium tax ................................................................................................................................ 6
Travel administrators .................................................................................................................. 8
Inland marine .............................................................................................................................. 8
Miscellaneous .............................................................................................................................. 9
Travel insurance definitions ...................................................................................................... 10
Electronic signatures ..................................................................................................................... 12
Unfair and deceptive practices ..................................................................................................... 13
Value-added products ............................................................................................................... 13
Noncash gifts ............................................................................................................................. 15
Raffles and drawings ................................................................................................................. 15
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Rules and miscellaneous provisions .......................................................................................... 15
Insurance holding companies ....................................................................................................... 16
Group capital calculation .......................................................................................................... 16
Liquidity stress test.................................................................................................................... 18
Material information ................................................................................................................. 19
Holding company transaction standards .................................................................................. 19
Deposit or bond .................................................................................................................... 20
Information held by affiliates ............................................................................................... 20
Proprietary documents ............................................................................................................. 21
Sharing of confidential information .......................................................................................... 22
Agreements governing sharing information with third parties ................................................ 22
Nonforfeiture amount .................................................................................................................. 23
Title insurance joint ventures ....................................................................................................... 24
DETAILED ANALYSIS
Travel insurance
The act amends the Limited Lines Travel Insurance Agents Law (LLTIAL). Note that
though the act appears to repeal a substantial portion of prior law and enact almost entirely
new law, the majority of the provisions contained in the act are simply moved from existing
sections. This reorganization was done to better accommodate the changes made by the act.
This analysis details which provisions are removed and newly created. It does not indicate
which provisions were reorganized.
Travel retailers
Currently, the LLTIAL allows nonlicensed travel retailers to sell travel insurance in
conjunction with a licensed agent if certain requirements are met. One of those requirements is
that a licensed agent must create a register of the travel retailers selling insurance on the
agent’s behalf. The act requires the travel insurance agent to update the register as often as
necessary to maintain its accuracy. Furthermore, it requires the register to include the name,
address, and contact information of the travel retailer and of an officer or person who directs
or controls the travel retailer’s operations, and the federal tax ID number of the travel retailer.
The act explicitly authorizes the Superintendent of Insurance to apply the grounds for
license suspension, license revocation, and the imposition of penalties that pertain to resident
insurance agents to limited lines travel insurance agents and travel retailers.1
1 R.C. 3905.065(C).
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The act removes a requirement that a travel retailer to sell travel insurance only in
conjunction with the making, arranging, or offering of travel services.2
Continuing law requires that travel retailers offering or selling travel insurance provide
materials to consumers containing the material terms of the policy, a description of how to file
a claim or cancel the policy, and the contact information of the insurer and licensed agent
issuing the policy. The act specifies that these materials are to be approved by the licensed
agent under which the travel retailer is selling travel insurance and must be provided to a
policyholder or certificate holder as soon as practicable after the purchase of a travel
protection plan.3
Single price for multiple features
The act allows individuals authorized to sell travel protection plans to offer and sell a
travel protection plan that includes several features for one price if all of the following are met:
 At or prior to the time of purchase, the travel protection plan both:
 Clearly discloses to the consumer that it includes travel insurance, travel assistance
services, and cancellation fee waivers, as applicable; and
 Provides information and an opportunity for the consumer to obtain additional
information regarding the features and pricing of each of the combined features.
 The fulfillment materials provided to the consumer include the following, as applicable:
 A description and delineation of the travel insurance, travel assistance services, and
cancellation fee waivers in the travel protection plan;
 The travel insurance disclosures; and
 The contact information for persons providing travel assistance services and
cancellation fee waivers, as applicable.4
Accordingly, the act repeals the requirement that all costs paid or charged to a customer for the
purchase of insurance be separately itemized on the customer’s bill.5
Materials
The act requires all documents provided to consumers prior to purchasing travel
insurance, including sales, advertising, and marketing materials, to be consistent with the travel
insurance policy itself, including forms, endorsements, policies, rate filings, and certificates of
insurance.
2 R.C. 3905.064(E)(5) and (G)(2)(d).
3 R.C. 3905.065(H)(3) and 3905.066(A)(1) and (B).
4 R.C. 3905.065(F).
5 R.C. 3905.064(G)(3)(b).
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For travel insurance policies or certificates that contain preexisting condition exclusions,
information and an opportunity to learn more about the preexisting condition exclusions must
be provided to consumers any time prior to the time of purchase and also in the coverage’s
fulfillment materials.
Finally, a travel insurer is required to disclose in the policy documentation and
fulfillment materials whether the travel insurance is primary or secondary to other applicable
coverage.6
Cancellation
Unless the insured has either started a covered trip or filed a claim under the travel
insurance coverage, a policyholder or certificate holder may cancel a travel insurance policy or
certificate for a full refund of the travel protection plan price as follows:
 If the plan’s fulfillment materials are delivered by postal mail, the policyholder or
certificate holder may cancel within 15 days following the date of delivery.
 If the plan’s fulfillment materials are delivered by other means, the policyholder or
certificate holder may cancel within ten days following the date of delivery.
For this purpose, “delivery” includes handing fulfillment materials to the policyholder or
certificate holder or sending fulfillment materials by postal mail or electronic means to the
policyholder or certificate holder.7
Unfair and deceptive practices
The act specifies that all persons offering or selling travel insurance are subject to the
Unfair and Deceptive Acts or Practices in the Business of Insurance Law. Possible sanctions for
violating these provisions include suspending or revoking the insurer’s license (or, for travel
retailers, the authorization to sell travel insurance), being required to make restitution, or a civil
penalty.8
The act explicitly designates two practices as being unfair and deceptive practices:
 Offering or selling a travel insurance policy that could never result in payment of any
claims; and
 Marketing blanket travel insurance as free.
Beyond the penalties for engaging in an unfair or deceptive practice, violations of these
prohibitions are subject to the penalties imposed on individual insurance agents, which
includes: suspension, revocation, or refusal to issue or renew a license, a civil fine, or the
6 R.C. 3905.065(H).
7 R.C. 3905.065(I).
8 R.C. 3905.067(A) and 3901.21; R.C. 3901.22, not in the act.
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imposition of any other sanction or sanctions authorized under the Insurance Producers
Licensing Act.9
The act explicitly designates certain actions as not being unfair or deceptive. The act of
marketing travel insurance directly to a consumer through a travel insurer’s website or through
an aggregator site is not an unfair and deceptive act or practice if both of the following
conditions are met:
 An accurate summary or short description of coverage is provided on the website; and
 The consumer has access to the full provisions of the policy through electronic means.
Furthermore, where a consumer’s destination jurisdiction requires insurance coverage,
it is not a deceptive practice to require the consumer to choose between the following options
as a condition of purchasing a trip or travel package:
 Purchasing the coverage required by the destination jurisdiction through the travel
retailer or limited lines travel insurance agent supplying the trip or travel package; or
 Agreeing to obtain and provide proof of coverage that meets the destination
jurisdiction’s requirements prior to departure.10
Premium tax
R.C. Chapter 5725 requires domestic insurance companies to pay a franchise tax
computed on the basis of premiums received from policies covering risks within Ohio, subject
to certain exemptions and deductions. R.C. Chapter 5729 similarly requires foreign insurance
companies to pay taxes computed on the basis of premiums received from policies covering
risks within Ohio.
Although the act does not create a new tax, it includes in the Insurance Law language
explicitly stating which premiums are subject to the tax. It states that travel insurers must pay
these taxes on premiums it collects from any of the following:
 An individual primary policyholder who is an Ohio resident;
 A primary certificate holder who is an Ohio resident who elects coverage under a group
travel insurance policy;
 A blanket travel insurance policyholder, when the policy covers eligible blanket group
members, that is a resident of, or has its principal place of business in, Ohio, including
when the policy covers an affiliate or subsidiary, regardless of the location of the
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