Instant access: some state insurance departments are making public access to company financial information as easy as logging on.

In a slow-moving trend, a handful of state insurance departments are posting domestic insurance company financial statements on the Internet, for all to see.

This online access separates those states from most others, which depend on the central repository of insurer financial information available on the Web site of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

"It just makes sense," said Bill Ripple, spokesman for the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, which was the first state to post complete statements of in-state insurers on the Internet, in 2002. "In Washington State, we have a pretty robust public disclosure law in terms of public records. The culture here is to disclose it; if you can answer it, do."

In states without online access to local insurers, the public must use the NAIC site, which devotes three pages to public access: InsData, an online financial statement library; Insure U, which provides insurance tips and information for small business owners; and the Consumer Information Source (CIS), where the public can access instate insurer information including annual statements. Most states that do not post insurer financials themselves do provide links to one of the NAIC's Web pages.

Only four states currently offer public access to domestic insurers via state department of insurance Web sites: Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington; California is in the process of providing full online access.

The Washington State OIC provides information in a WinZip file. "You download it from our Web site," Ripple said. "They come up as a PDF, and you can print them out. A lot of times it's used by other companies rather than consumers."

As in most states, Washington has always offered public access to insurer financial statements, but in hard copy, not via the Internet.

"It was a very time-consuming process to physically gather and print out the reports. The person would then have to come into our office to view them," Ripple said of the former method. "So in 2002 we made a determination that we had the capacity and opportunity to post them on our Web site. They've always been available, just not on the Web site."

In addition to posting flail financial statements, the Washington State OIC also offers a direct link to the NAIC Web site. "We certainly believe that consumers benefit from having access to information from insurance companies, and we want to do what we can to meet that need," Ripple said.

"Good Public Service"

The Ohio Department of Insurance began posting financial statements online in 2002 "because we thought it was a good public service," said spokesman Jarrett Dunbar. "People who have used the service say they do appreciate having it online.... I know that we have received comments from reporters around the state and country saying that they find it a very useful tool as well."

2006, the financial statement page was accessed 20,999 times, he said.

Rhode Island has been providing annual statements online for about four years, due to a combination of consumer requests and efforts to streamline the process, the department stated. It's been well-received thus far.

Most of the 51 state insurance departments--including the District of Columbia--polled by Best's Review do offer public access to hard copies or in-house views of financial information on domestic insurers, in accordance with each state's individual public access law or the federal Freedom of Information Act. (Sec page 75.)

All 5,100-some insurance companies in the United States send annual filings--including key financials, actuarials and other information--to the NAIC, which puts them in a central repository. Filings submitted in PDF format are available via the InsData system.

Additionally, every state provides financial information for some of its lines to the NAIC; about 97% of the total premiums volume written in the United States is reported in the database, according to the NAIC.

Insurance companies also file information with rating agencies such as A.M. Best Co. Companies such as Best use those filings as part of the assignment of financial strength ratings to insurance companies. NAIC posts the data for the states as well as vendors who repackage the information, subject it to their own analytics, and sell it.

Certain divisions of some state insurance departments don't file their financial statements. The California health insurance industry, for example, is governed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is not required to file with the NAIC. Yet property/casualty insurers in California are required to file with the NAIC.

Most states take advantage of the InsData link to the NAIC, said Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger. She was secretary/treasurer of the NAIC, chairing the committee that launched InsData, when the program was under development; the InsData link came up in February 2006.

"It's there for consumers who are thinking about buying an insurance product and just want to check the solvency and stability of the company. It's there for researchers and people who want to take that information and massage it and put it into formats for their own use," Praeger said, noting that the database is considered comprehensive.

Information for a Price

Prior to the launch of InsData, limited financial data was available on the NAIC Web site via the CIS Web page.

"As you can imagine, that extension is expensive to maintain," Praeger said. And so the NAIC began to charge a user fee a couple years ago after conducting a study that found while consumers do access the information, the majority of users are from insurance companies, law firms, investment banks, consultants, the media, colleges, government agencies and other businesses.

There's no cost for up to five statements every 12 months. After that, the cost is $10 per annual filing and $3 per quarterly filing.

At least one former user of the NAIC's InsData portal would like to see more states posting their own domestic financials.

"A lot of this stuff, it's probably worth my paying for it," said Joe Belth, professor emeritus of insurance for the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University at Bloomington. As editor of The Insurance Forum, an independent monthly newsletter, Belth needs to access financial statements on a regular basis.

"I only want certain information, and for me to gather the information from individual company statements would be quite a chore, so it's worth it to me to have it assembled this way," he said. "But I find it very inconvenient from time to time when I want to look at one company's statement. I can't do it. I literally can't do it."

For a recent project, Belth called up the Indiana Department of Insurance and asked to see just a portion--Schedule "S"--of the annual reports of 10 companies. But he wasn't allowed to just look; he had to purchase.

"The thing is, we're talking at least 100 pages, and I don't need all of them. I just want to look at them. After I look at them, I may only need three pages," he said. "So I wound up paying for the full 100 pages, and they got it for me fairly quickly."

The NAIC partially designed InsData after Amazon.com, Praeger said. A user who downloads more than the initial five free statements is automatically linked to a shopping cart. "It's pretty much patterned after online shopping, so it's easy to use. And that way we protect the availability for legitimate consumer use," she said.

The NAIC frowns on commercial use of the information it sells and "technically" has banned such use, Praeger said. "But we know that it's happening. We look at some of the usage. We have lots of offshore hits, so we know what's probably happening. But the main thing is making it available for legitimate purposes."

There are discounts for governmental or academic use. "If it's a legitimate research project, that's discounted by 50%," Praeger said.

Still, costs for individual customers like Belth can add up quickly. "If you wanted to look at 50 companies, you're talking about a thousand bucks just to look at them," he said.

Using InsData allows the NAIC to distribute such information to the end user "much more quickly," and the InsData application has been "very well-received" and has reduced information requests to state insurance departments, the association stated.

What's Next?

According to the NAIC, some states are now expanding their online financial presence by offering insurance premium comparison rates.

The Delaware Department of Insurance, which does not post insurance company financial statements online, began posting comparison rates for instate insurers on its Web site in late May. The interactive site allows consumers to type in what kind of insurance they're seeking and their coverage limit, preferred deductible and resident ZIP code. The site then brings up an array of domestic insurers, along with their approximate yearly rates and their A.M. Best rating.

A recent search for homeowners insurance in Delaware asking $250,000 coverage with a $500 deductible brought up 47 quotes ranging from $416 to $2,411.

The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, which does not post insurer financials or offer a link to the NAIC, does post 2007 premium rate changes on its Web site for instate health, homeowners and personal auto insurers.

And the Washington State Legislature passed a law during its most recent session that would allow the state's OIC to launch an application--as early as this summer--that would enable consumers to compare health carriers in terms of cost, financial expense and medical loss ratios.

"They can compare them between companies. We're pretty excited about it," said Washington OIC spokesman Ripple. The department's original mandate was to launch the application by September, but it's working ahead of schedule. "That will show a lot of information for consumers: what surplus they have, profit margins, annual rate changes for health plans, administrative costs. They can make a better-informed decision."

Key Points

* A handful of state insurance departments are posting domestic insurance company financial statements on their Web sites for public access.

* Most states just post a link to InsData, the financial data source of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

* Some states are expanding their online financial presence by offering insurance premium comparison rates and other information.

--Editorial Assistant Rebecca Bernaski contributed to this article.

RELATED ARTICLE: Public information is not always accessible or affordable.

While only a handful of states currently post instate insurers' financial information online, most others at least provide a link to the Web site of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. And many of those also provide hard copies of financials on request, or allow the public to view documents in-house, in accordance with each state's individual public access law or the federal Freedom of Information Act.

For example, the Arizona Department of Insurance does not yet offer full financial statements online, but "We do provide partial information for the public from our Web site, and we do link to the NAIC Web site," spokeswoman Erin Klug said.

In the office of the Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, "If someone makes a request, we'll get it to you," said spokesman Glenn Allen. That's in either PDF or hard copy.

The District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking posts financial information for all D.C.-based health entities, which represent about 40% of the region's domestic insurers, a spokesman said. That's due to prior consumer requests; the department upgrades the site with more information as it's requested.

The Maryland Insurance Administration posts final examination reports issued since Jan. 1, 2002. Prior reports must be requested in writing from the Public Information Act Coordinator, and photocopy fees may apply, a spokeswoman said. The site also offers a link to the NAIC's Insure U Web page.

The State of Kansas Department of Insurance makes its domestic insurers' annual financial statements available to the public in hard copy for a nominal fee, said Ken Abitz, the department's director of financial surveillance.

"We do charge companies for making copies," Abitz said. The fee is $1.25 per page and $7.50 an hour for man-hours. Consumers are not charged for copies, according to the state's open records policy.

"We do put a link to the NAIC Consumer Web site so they can look at general financial information," Abitz said. The department also has links to various rating agencies. Navigating the site is fairly easy, but accessing public information could be a little smoother, he said.

"We're improving upon that every day," Abitz said. "You don't want people to have to drill down too far, or they'll give up."

What's Online?

Many of the Web sites of state departments of insurance post some
type of financial information on domestic insurers.

STATE                  FINANCIAL
                       STATEMENTS

Alabama                partial
Alaska                 link only
Arizona                partial; link
Arkansas               partial; link
California             partial; updating process
Colorado               partial; link
Connecticut            partial; link
Delaware               link only
District of Columbia   partial
Florida                hard copies on request; link
Georgia                full info on request
Hawaii                 none; link to Insure U
Idaho                  full info on request
Illinois               link only
Indiana                hard copies on request; link
Iowa                   none; link to Insure U
Kansas                 hard copies on request; link
Kentucky               full info on request
Louisiana              none; link to Insure U
Maine                  full info on request; link
Maryland               none; link to Insure U
Massachusetts          none; link to Insure U
Michigan               partial; link
Minnesota              full info onsite
Mississippi            full info on request
Missouri               hard copies on request; link
Montana                hard copies; link
Nebraska               full info on request; link
Nevada                 link only
New Hampshire          link only
New Jersey             partial
New Mexico             link only
New York               full info on request; link
North Carolina         link only
North Dakota           full info on request
Ohio                   full info onsite
Oklahoma               partial; link
Oregon                 full info on request; link
Pennsylvania           full info on request
Rhode Island           full info onsite
South Carolina         hard copies; link
South Dakota           full info on request; link
Tennessee              no info; no link
Texas                  full info on request; link
Utah                   hard copies
Vermont                full info in office
Virginia               partial online; full on request
Washington             full info onsite
West Virginia          full info on request; link
Wisconsin              full info on request; link
Wyoming                partial; link

STATE                  What insurer financial information does it
                       offer online?

Alabama                posts the most recent examination reports.
Alaska                 link to the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Arizona                posts partial financial information on in-state
                         insurers; link to the NAIC Insure U Web page.
Arkansas               posts financial statements for health insurers;
                         link to the NAIC Consumer Web page.
California             posts some financial information on in-state
                         insurers; developing public access to
                         statements online.
Colorado               posts partial financial statements for in-state
                         insurers (no investment info); link to NAIC
                         Web site.
Connecticut            posts the top 20 insurers in each category
                         listed by admitted assets; link to NAIC home
                         page.
Delaware               recently began posting exam reports and rate
                         comparisons; link to NAIC home page.
District of Columbia   posts info for D.C.-based health entities; hard
                         copies on request; link to the NAIC home
                         page.
Florida                hard copies at a per-page copy charge; posts
                         financial exam reports; link to NAIC home
                         page.
Georgia                annual statement info is available to the
                         public on request; PDFs and/or hard copies
                         available.
Hawaii                 link to the NAIC Insure U Web page.
Idaho                  hard copies only; link to the NAIC Consumer
                         Web page.
Illinois               link to the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Indiana                hard copies only; link to the NAIC Insure U
                         Web page.
Iowa                   link to the NAIC Insure U Web page.
Kansas                 offers hard copies for a nominal fee; link to
                         the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Kentucky               requires an open record request to view
                         financial statements.
Louisiana              link to the NAIC Insure U Web page.
Maine                  posts examination reports for domestic
                         companies; link to the NAIC Consumer Web
                         page.
Maryland               posts final examination reports; link to the
                         NAIC Insure U Web page.
Massachusetts          link to the NAIC Insure U Web page.
Michigan               posts financial statements for HMOs only; link
                         to NAIC Consumer Web page.
Minnesota              posts financial statement summaries for
                         in-state insurers; link to the NAIC home
                         page.
Mississippi            hard copies only; revamping Web site to include
                         a link to the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Missouri               hard copies only; link to the NAIC Consumer Web
                         page.
Montana                hard copies available by written request; link
                         to the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Nebraska               public access to hard copies only; link to the
                         NAIC Consumer Web page.
Nevada                 link to the NAIC home page.
New Hampshire          link to the NAIC home page.
New Jersey             hard copies only; posts market conduct
                         examinations online (updated every three
                         years).
New Mexico             link to the NAIC home page.
New York               hard copies and PDFs via request; consumers are
                         redirected to rating agencies or the NAIC
                         Web site.
North Carolina         consumers can view financial statements in the
                         department of insurance office.
North Dakota           hard copies on request; requests are handled
                         in one to two days.
Ohio                   posts full financial statements of all in-state
                         insurers online since 2002.
Oklahoma               posts partial info: assets & liabilities,
                         capital & surplus, state premium & claims.
Oregon                 hard copies must be reviewed in-house; link to
                         the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Pennsylvania           hard copies available from the department's
                         three locations.
Rhode Island           posts full financial statements of in-state
                         insurers; includes examination reports. No
                         link to NAIC.
South Carolina         hard copies of full financial statements are
                         available on request; link to the NAIC
                         Consumer Web page.
South Dakota           hard copies available; statements for
                         non-domiciled insurers can be retrieved via
                         the NAIC Web page.
Tennessee              no online access; no link to NAIC.
Texas                  hard copies of full financial statements are
                         available on request; link to the NAIC
                         Consumer Web page.
Utah                   hard copies available on request or to view
                         in-house for domestic insurers only.
Vermont                hard copies only; access to public portions.
Virginia               posts partial annual financial info and
                         examination reports.
Washington             posts full financial statements of all in-state
                         insurers.
West Virginia          hard copies of financial statements available
                         on request.
Wisconsin              hard copies available at the office, or can be
                         ordered; link to the NAIC Consumer Web page.
Wyoming                posts examination reports for five health care
                         insurers; link to NAIC home page.