R.I. Gen. Laws § 27-14.3-3

Current through 2024 Public Law 457

Section 27-14.3-3 - Definitions

For the purposes of this chapter:

(1) "Ancillary state" means any state other than a domiciliary state;

(2) "Commissioner" means the director of the department of business regulation;

(3) "Creditor" is a person having any claim, whether matured or unmatured, liquidated or unliquidated, secured or unsecured, absolute, fixed, or contingent;

(4) "Delinquency proceeding" means any proceeding instituted against an insurer for the purpose of liquidating, rehabilitating, reorganizing, or conserving that insurer, and any summary proceeding under § 27-14.3-10. "Formal delinquency proceeding" means any liquidation or rehabilitation proceeding;

(5) "Doing business" includes any of the following acts, whether effected by mail or otherwise:

(i) The issuance or delivery of contracts of insurance to persons resident in this state;

(ii) The solicitation of applications for those contracts, or other negotiations preliminary to the execution of those contracts;

(iii) The collection of premiums, membership fees, assessments, or other consideration for those contracts;

(iv) The transaction of matters subsequent to the execution of those contracts and arising out of them;

(v) Operating under a license, approval, or certificate of authority, as an insurer, issued by the insurance department; or

(vi) Those other acts defined in § 27-16-1.2(b);

(6) "Domiciliary state" means the state in which an insurer is incorporated or organized; or, in the case of an alien insurer, its state of entry;

(7) "Fair consideration" is given for property or obligation:

(i) When in exchange for the property or obligation, as a fair equivalent for these, and in good faith, property is conveyed or services are rendered or an obligation is incurred or an antecedent debt is satisfied; or

(ii) When the property or obligation is received in good faith to secure a present advance or antecedent debt in an amount not disproportionately small as compared to the value of the property or obligation obtained;

(8) "Foreign country" means any other jurisdiction not in any state of the United States;

(9) "General assets" means all property, real, personal, or otherwise, not specifically mortgaged, pledged, deposited, or encumbered for the security or benefit of specified persons or classes of persons. As to specifically encumbered property, "general assets" includes all property or its proceeds in excess of the amount necessary to discharge the sum or sums secured by those assets. Assets held in trust and on deposit for the security or benefit of all policyholders or all policyholders and creditors in more than a single state, shall be treated as general assets;

(10) "Guaranty association" means the Rhode Island insurers' insolvency fund created by the Rhode Island Insurers' Insolvency Fund Act, chapter 34 of this title, and the Rhode Island life and health insurance guaranty association, created by the Rhode Island Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association Act, chapter 34.1 of this title, and any other similar entity now or after this created by the legislature of this state for the payment of claims of insolvent insurers. "Foreign guaranty association" means any similar entities now in existence in or after this created by the legislature of any other state;

(11) "Insolvency" or "insolvent" means:

(i) For an insurer issuing only assessable fire insurance policies:

(A) The inability to pay any obligation within thirty (30) days after it becomes payable; or

(B) If an assessment is made within thirty (30) days after that date, the inability to pay the obligation thirty (30) days following the date specified in the first assessment notice issued after the date of loss;

(ii) For any other insurer, including those referenced in § 27-14.3-2(8), that it is unable to pay its obligations when they are due, or when its admitted assets do not exceed its liabilities plus the greater of:

(A) Any capital and surplus required by law for its organization and continued operation; or

(B) The total par or stated value of its authorized and issued capital stock;

(iii) For the purposes of this subdivision, "liabilities" includes, but is not limited to, reserves required by statute or by insurance department general regulations or specific requirements imposed by the commissioner upon a subject company at the time of admission or subsequent to admission;

(12) "Insurer" means any person who has done, purports to do, is doing, or is licensed or approved to do an insurance business, and is or has been subject to the authority of, or to liquidation, rehabilitation, reorganization, supervision, or conservation by, any insurance commissioner. For the purposes of this chapter, any other persons included under § 27-14.3-2 shall be deemed to be insurers and for the purposes of this chapter, guaranty associations shall not be deemed to be doing the business of insurance or the insurer;

(13) "Person" includes any natural person, corporation, association, partnership, trust, or other legal entity;

(14) "Preferred claim" means any claim with respect to which the terms of this chapter accord priority of payment from the general assets of the insurer;

(15) "Receiver" means receiver, liquidator, rehabilitator, or conservator, as the context requires;

(16) "Reciprocal state" means any state other than this state in which in substance and effect §§ 27-14.3-22(a), 27-14.3-56, 27-14.3-57 and 27-14.3-59 - 27-14.3-61 are in force, and in which provisions are in force requiring that the commissioner or equivalent official is the receiver of a delinquent insurer, and in which some provision exists for the avoidance of fraudulent conveyances and preferential transfers;

(17) "Secured claim" means any claim secured by mortgage, trust deed, pledge, deposit as security, escrow, or otherwise, but not including special deposit claims or claims against general assets. The term also includes claims, which have become liens upon specific assets by reason of judicial process;

(18) "Special deposit claim" means any claim secured by a deposit made pursuant to statute for the security or benefit of a limited class or classes of persons, but not including any claim secured by general assets;

(19) "State" means any state, district, or territory of the United States and the Panama canal zone; and

(20) "Transfer" includes the sale and every other and different mode, direct or indirect, or disposing of or of parting with property or with an interest in property, or with the possession of property or of fixing a lien upon property or upon an interest in it absolutely or conditionally, voluntarily, by or without judicial proceedings. The retention of a security title to property delivered to a debtor shall be deemed a transfer suffered by the debtor.

R.I. Gen. Laws § 27-14.3-3

P.L. 1993, ch. 248, §1; P.L. 2001 , ch. 122, § 10.