Nothing in Sections 59A-32-14 through 59A-32-18 NMSA 1978 shall prohibit an insurer offering private passenger motor vehicle insurance to New Mexico residents from providing a minimum twenty percent premium discount for bodily injury liability, property damage liability and collision coverages.
History: Laws 1987, ch. 18, § 6; 1991, ch. 135, § 1; 1993, ch. 194, § 1.
The 1993 amendment, effective June 18, 1993, deleted the Subsection "A" designation; deleted former Subsections B through E, relating to a twenty percent premium discount to be provided for in any rating schedules submitted to the superintendent of insurance, provisions for circumstances under which the discount would be effective, regulations withholding the discount, and authorization to apply the discount for persons fifty-five years old, respectively.
Temporary provisions. — Laws 1993, ch. 194, § 2 provides that a person whose private passenger motor vehicle insurance premium was increased as a result of application of the provisions of Laws 1991, Chapter 135, Section 1 shall be refunded the amount of the increased premium or receive a credit for that amount against a renewal premium. If a refund is due to a policyholder who is no longer insured by the insurer, the insurer may satisfy the provisions of this section by making a good faith effort to deliver the refund to the policyholder at his last known address.
The 1991 amendment, effective June 14, 1991, rewrote this section, which read "Nothing in Sections 1 through 5 of this act shall prohibit an insurer from offering a discount or a reduction in premium for any reason."
No rate rollback required. — The plain language of former Subsection B as it read prior to its deletion in 1993 merely required insurers to provide a minimum 20% premium differential between those policyholders who had been involved in an accident during the prior three-year period and those without such accidents. The statute did not state that premium rates must be set at any particular level or that the discount must be 20% below rates filed with the superintendent of insurance. Despite the legislature's use of the words "Discounts or Reductions in Premiums" in the title, a court would not construe the statute to require an insurance premium rate roll back because the plain meaning of the text did not require a 20% rate reduction. 1991 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 91-10.
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