While much of the focus and of the Session involved the regulation of homeowners and auto insurance and their rates, the Legislature also passed bills relating to health insurance and group property insurance.

SB 10 sponsored by Sen. Kip Averitt allows small employers to form group health cooperatives with other small and large employers in order to obtain health coverage for their employees.

Similarly HB 897 by Rep. Beverly Woolley clarifies that a "small employer health coalition" is a single employer for insurance purposes. This prevents insurers from canceling policies with small employer health coalitions because they do not consider them to be a single employer. This promotes the development of the coalitions similar to the efforts in SB10.

SB 541 by Sen. Tommy Williams allows insurers and health maintenance organizations to offer policies that, in whole or in part, do not provide state mandated health benefits. Full disclosure to the policyholder of which mandated benefits are not offered is required.

In the property insurance arena, HB 1865 by Rep. Dennis Bonnen, authorizes insurers to write commercial group property insurance for a group of businesses as long as the businesses have identifiable underwriting characteristics or are part of an Association whose members are engaged in similar undertakings.

HB2095 by Rep. Robby Cook allows employers in the same type of business who belong to a trade association in Texas to join together to self-insure for workers' compensation. This legislation is based on the model act for group self-insurance adopted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and draws from provisions in the Texas Insurance Code applicable to commercial insurance companies and the Texas Workers' Compensation Act applicable to individual certified self-insured employers. The Texas Construction Association is actively exploring the establishment of a self-insured fund as prescribed by this bill as a benefit for its members. Interested companies should contact the TCA office at (512) 473-3773.