Life Bureau Filing Guidance Note

Filing Guidance on Changes in the Investment Options Of a Separate Account for Group and Individual Variable Products

Guidance Date: 11/01/2010

A change in the investment options of a separate account needs to be filed with the Department on an informational basis only. Insurance Law § 3201 (b)(7)(A). The informational filing needs to be made with the Department no later than 60 days after the Life Bureau's New York City Office has approved the amended Plan of Operations for the separate account.

The caption of the document should be titled List of Funds, and contain:

  • the company name;
  • a current date;
  • a list of all policy forms affected, including applications that reflect the variable subaccounts; and
  • a statement indicating that a revised List of Funds will be filed with the Department on an informational basis for any change in the subaccounts.

The List of Funds should not be given a form number, and the Department will not consider any form number that an insurer chooses to use as the Department's own. In any event, any form number that an insurer chooses to give to the List of Funds, for its internal purposes only, must not appear in the lower left corner of the document.

Please note that the initial List of Funds must still be filed for approval with the accompanying policy form(s). Only changes to that List of Funds may be submitted through an informational filing.

A paper submission that involves only a change in the investment option needs to include the wording "FUND CHANGES ONLY" in bold in the "Re" of the submission letter.

A SERFF submission that involves only fund changes should select the Requested Filing Mode of "Other" and for the Explanation for Other, FUND CHANGES ONLY should be used.

The Department will not be sending an acknowledgement of the paper submissions. SERFF submissions will receive an automatic "Filed for Informational Purposes' disposition in SERFF.

The submission letter should be directed to:

Mr. Peter Dumar, Jr.
Chief Insurance Attorney
Life Bureau - Suite 1910
New York State Department of Financial Services
One Commerce Plaza
Albany, NY 12257