Request By:
Mr. Harold B. McGuffey, Chairman
Kentucky Insurance Regulatory Board
Department of Insurance
Capital Plaza Tower
Frankfort, Kentucky
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Victor Fox, Assistant Attorney General
You requested of this office an opinion regarding the interpretation of the term "hearing" as used in KRS 304.39-330(1).
Specifically you asked:
Does consideration of a rate increase for bodily injury liability and no-fault coverage in an open hearing by the Kentucky Insurance Regulatory Board constitute a hearing as required by statute in the Motor Vehicle Reparations Act of 1974?
Executive Order 77-564 transferred to the Kentucky Insurance Regulatory Board the commissioner's authority under Subtitle 13 of Chapter 304. Prior to the issuance of that order, any hearing required under KRS 304.39-330(1) would have been conducted under the provisions and guidelines of Subtitle 13.
Since that authority now exists within the Kentucky Insurance Regulatory Board, it is the opinion of this office that an open hearing by the Kentucky Insurance Regulatory Board constitutes a valid hearing as required by KRS 304.39-330(1).