375.012. Definitions.
Definitions.
375.012. 1. Sections 375.012 to 375.146 may be cited as the "InsuranceProducers Act".
2. As used in sections 375.012 to 375.158, the following words mean:
(1) "Business entity", a corporation, association, partnership, limitedliability company, limited liability partnership or other legal entity;
(2) "Director", the director of the department of insurance, financialinstitutions and professional registration;
(3) "Home state", the District of Columbia and any state or territory ofthe United States in which the insurance producer maintains his or herprincipal place of residence or principal place of business and is licensed toact as an insurance producer;
(4) "Insurance", any line of authority, including life, accident andhealth or sickness, property, casualty, variable life and variable annuityproducts, personal, credit and any other line of authority permitted by statelaw or regulation;
(5) "Insurance company" or "insurer", any person, reciprocal exchange,interinsurer, Lloyds insurer, fraternal benefit society, and any other legalentity engaged in the business of insurance, including health servicescorporations, health maintenance organizations, prepaid limited health careservice plans, dental, optometric and other similar health service plans,unless their exclusion from this definition can be clearly ascertained fromthe context of the particular statutory section under consideration. Insurershall also include all companies organized, incorporated or doing businesspursuant to the provisions of chapters 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381 and 384,RSMo. Trusteed pension plans and profit-sharing plans qualified pursuant tothe United States Internal Revenue Code as now or hereafter amended shall notbe considered to be insurance companies or insurers within the definition ofthis section;
(6) "Insurance producer" or "producer", a person required to be licensedpursuant to the laws of this state to sell, solicit or negotiate insurance;
(7) "License", a document issued by the director authorizing a person toact as an insurance producer for the lines of authority specified in thedocument. The license itself shall not create any authority, actual, apparentor inherent, in the holder to represent or commit an insurance company;
(8) "Limited line credit insurance", credit life, credit disability,credit property, credit unemployment, involuntary unemployment, mortgage life,mortgage guaranty, mortgage disability, guaranteed automobile protection (GAP)insurance, and any other form of insurance offered in connection with anextension of credit that is limited to partially or wholly extinguishing thatcredit obligation that the director determines should be designated a form oflimited line credit insurance;
(9) "Limited line credit insurance producer", a person who sells,solicits or negotiates one or more forms of limited line credit insurancecoverage through a master, corporate, group or individual policy;
(10) "Limited lines insurance", insurance involved in credittransactions, insurance contracts issued primarily for covering the risk oftravel or any other line of insurance that the director deems necessary torecognize for the purposes of complying with subsection 5 of section 375.017;
(11) "Limited lines producer", a person authorized by the director tosell, solicit or negotiate limited lines insurance;
(12) "Negotiate", the act of conferring directly with or offering advicedirectly to a purchaser or prospective purchaser of a particular contract ofinsurance concerning any of the substantive benefits, terms or conditions ofthe contract, provided that the person engaged in that act either sellsinsurance or obtains insurance from insurers for purchasers;
(13) "Person", an individual or any business entity;
(14) "Personal lines insurance", property and casualty insurancecoverage sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercialpurposes;
(15) "Sell", to exchange a contract of insurance by any means, for moneyor its equivalent, on behalf of an insurance company;
(16) "Solicit", attempting to sell insurance or asking or urging aperson to apply for a particular kind of insurance from a particular company;
(17) "Terminate", the cancellation of the relationship between aninsurance producer and the insurer or the termination of the authority of theproducer to transact the business of insurance;
(18) "Uniform business entity application", the current version of theNational Association of Insurance Commissioners uniform business entityapplication for resident and nonresident business entities seeking aninsurance producer license;
(19) "Uniform application", the current version of the NationalAssociation of Insurance Commissioners uniform application for resident andnonresident producer licensing.
3. All statutory references to insurance agent or insurance broker shallmean insurance producer, as that term is defined pursuant to subsection 1 ofthis section.
(L. 1961 p. 504 § 1, L. 1965 p. 569, A.L. 1967 p. 516, A.L. 1981 S.B. 10, A.L. 1993 H.B. 709, A.L. 1997 S.B. 150, A.L. 2001 S.B. 193, A.L. 2007 S.B. 66)