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SOP for Filing and Reporting Surplus Lines Policies in Colorado

Reporting of premiums and taxes in CO, ensuring compliance with state regulations. Effective Date: 1/1/2024

Updated over 7 months ago

Here is a link to a visual aid of the new process

Transition Overview:

  1. As of January 1, 2025, all new, renewal, and endorsement transactions for surplus lines policies with effective dates from that date must be submitted through the Clearinghouse SLIP site.

  2. Transactions with policy effective dates before January 1, 2025, will continue to be filed in DORA.

Filing Policies in InsCipher:

  1. The InsCipher portal is hard-coded to recognize policy effective dates and allocate transactions to the correct department for reporting individual filings outside the monthly/quarterly/annual reporting requirements.

  2. Transactions with policy effective dates before January 1, 2025, will display DORA credentials for filing.

  3. Transactions with policy effective dates from January 1, 2025, onwards will display Clearinghouse credentials.

  4. Minimal manipulation of these processes is needed.

DORA State Reporting Tasks (SRTs)

  1. Previous Requirements:

    1. Business could be filed under an agency license or a producer license.

    2. Zero reports were required for all licenses that did not write business.

    3. Premium was filed under the license that wrote the business, and zero reports were completed for all other licenses.

Updated Requirements:

  1. For Policy Effective Dates before January 1, 2025

    1. Monthly reporting is still required in DORA for these policies

    2. If a licensee goes several months without writing business but then reports business, a premium report must be completed for that month, and zero reports for the other months of the year. (pertains to policy effective dates for years before 2025)

    3. Example: Producer Sally has a policy that was written in October 2024. She has an endorsement on that policy that is effective for June 2025. Sally would need to report the premium on that endorsement on a June 2025 report in DORA, complete the prior zero reports for January to May 2025, and continue to report either premium or zero reports through the end of 2025.

    4. Annual Zeros are no longer required.

  2. For Policy Effective Dates on or after January 1, 2025

    1. Zero Reports are no longer required.

Manual Manipulation of SRTs

DORA Monthly SRTs:

  1. Manually remove any 2025 transaction with policy effective dates from the DORA monthly SRTs (you can use our bulk update tool to do this).

  2. These will now be reported to the Clearinghouse quarterly.

  3. Suppose a transaction is filed in any month. In that case, zero reports for the year must be completed in DORA (this applies to transactions tied to a parent policy with a policy effective date before 2025).

Clearinghouse Quarterly Reports

  1. Manually remove any transactions with policy effective dates before January 1, 2025, as these will be reported in DORA (you can remove them using the bulk update tool).

  2. If a quarterly SRT is generated for an agency license, it can be archived as the Clearinghouse does not allow business to be reported under an agency license.

  3. Ensure that your transactions with a policy effective date for 2025 are associated with a producer license, not an agency license.

Annual Reporting

DORA Annual Report:

  1. InsCipher will generate an annual report for DORA reporting requirements.

  2. The annual report for an agency license should not have any policy effective dates after January 1, 2025.

  3. A premium-bearing producer license should only contain transactions with policy effective dates before January 1, 2025. Endorsements to policies effective BEFORE 01/01/2025 are to be filed in the DORA, even if the endorsement is effective 01/01/2025 and beyond.

  4. Manually remove any filings with policy effective dates after January 1, 2025.

  5. SRTs for licenses with zero premium can be archived if no premium was reported for any month of the year.

FAQs

  1. Concerned about Zero CO DORA tasks?

    1. Zero tasks for CO DORA are only required if premium-bearing transactions are reported for policies effective before January 1, 2025. Archive zeros unless you have premium transactions. If you report any premiums, complete zero reporting for all other months. This is needed for DORA to generate the correct SL Tax invoice. If no premiums are reported for 2025, no zeros are required. (updated 4/9/2025)

  2. Concerned about CO Filing Assignments to DORA/SLAS SRTs?

    1. Filings may still be assigned to DORA even if they should be for SLAS. We're working on a system update to fix this. For now, manually reassign any incorrect filings between DORA and SLAS.(updated 4/9/2025)

  3. Which license should be the default in the portal if transactions were filed under the agency license in DORA before 2025 and will be filed under the producer in SLAS going forward?

    1. To ensure correct reporting, update the producer to be the default and leave the checkbox to "apply to all filings" unchecked to avoid affecting prior transactions. Endorsements attached to the parent policy will use the originally reported license, while new transactions will allocate to the current default. (updated 4/9/2025)

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