Montana Code Annotated
Part 10. Workers' Compensation Rates and Advisory Organizations
33-16-1008. Definitions

33-16-1008. Definitions. As used in this part, the following definitions apply:
(1) "Accepted actuarial standards" means the standards adopted by the casualty actuarial society in its Statement of Principles Regarding Property and Casualty Insurance Ratemaking and the Standards of Practice adopted by the actuarial standards board.
(2) (a) "Advisory organization" means a person or organization that either has two or more member insurers or is controlled either directly or indirectly by two or more insurers and that assists insurers in ratemaking-related activities.
(b) The term does not include a joint underwriting association, any actuarial or legal consultant, or any employee of an insurer or insurers under common control or management or their employees or manager. For the purposes of this subsection (2)(b), two or more insurers who have a common ownership or operate in this state under common control or management constitute a single insurer.
(3) "Classification system" means the plan, system, or arrangement for recognizing differences in exposure to hazards among industries, occupations, or operations of insurance policyholders.
(4) "Contingencies" means provisions in rates to recognize the uncertainty of the estimates of losses, loss adjustment expenses, other operating expenses, and investment income and profit that comprise those rates. The provisions may be explicit, including but not limited to a specific charge to reflect systematic variations of estimated costs from expected costs, or implicit, including but not limited to a consideration in selecting a single estimate from a reasonable range of estimates, or both.
(5) "Developed losses" means adjusted losses, including loss adjustment expenses, using accepted actuarial standards to eliminate the effect of differences between current payment or reserve estimates and those needed to provide actual ultimate loss payments, including loss adjustment expense payments.
(6) "Expenses" means the portion of a rate that is attributable to acquisition, filed supervision and collection expenses, general expenses and taxes, licenses, or fees.
(7) "Experience rating" means a rating procedure using past insurance experience of the individual policyholder to forecast future losses by measuring the policyholder's loss experience against the loss experience of policyholders in the same classification to produce a prospective premium credit, debit, or unity modification.
(8) "Insurer" means a person licensed to write workers' compensation insurance as a plan No. 2 insurer or plan No. 3, the state fund, under the laws of the state.
(9) "Loss trending" means a procedure for projecting developed losses to the average date of loss for the period during which the policies are to be effective, including loss ratio trending.
(10) "Market" means the interaction in this state between buyers and plan No. 2 sellers of workers' compensation and employer's liability insurance pursuant to the provisions of this part.
(11) (a) "Prospective loss costs" means historical aggregate losses and loss adjustment expenses, including all assessments that are loss-based and excluding any separately stated policyholder surcharges, projected through development to their ultimate value and through trending to a future point in time and ascertained by accepted actuarial standards.
(b) The term does not include provisions for profit or expenses other than loss adjustment expenses and assessments that are loss-based.
(12) "Pure premium rate" means the portion of the rate that represents the loss cost per unit of exposure, including loss adjustment expense.
(13) (a) "Rate" or "rates" means rate of premium, policy and membership fee, or any other charge made by an insurer for or in connection with a contract or policy of workers' compensation and employer's liability insurance, prior to application of individual risk variations based on loss or expense considerations.
(b) The term does not include minimum premiums.
(14) "Reserve estimates" means provisions for insurer obligations for future payments of loss or loss adjustment expenses.
(15) "Statistical plan" means the plan, system, or arrangement that is used in collecting data.
(16) "Supplementary rate information" means a manual or plan of rates, statistical plan, classification system, minimum premium, policy fee, rating rule, rate-related underwriting rule, and any other information needed to determine the applicable premium for an individual insured that is consistent with the purposes of this part and with rules prescribed by rule of the commissioner.
(17) "Supporting information" means the experience and judgment of the filer and the experience or data of other insurers or advisory organizations relied on by the filer, the interpretation of any statistical data relied on by the filer, descriptions of methods used in making the rates, and any other similar information required to be filed by the commissioner.
History: En. Sec. 1, Ch. 186, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 2, Ch. 284, L. 1997; amd. Sec. 9, Ch. 320, L. 2015.