New Regulations For Insurance Telemarketers
Law360, New York (April 16, 2009) -- The Federal Trade Commission’s (the “FTC”)
recent amendment to its Telemarketing Sales Rules (“TSR”)[1] significantly impacts the
right of insurance carriers and their direct marketers and other insurance agents to
deliver prerecorded telemarketing calls to sell insurance products and services.
The Prerecorded Telemarketing Call Amendment (the “Amendment”) to the TSR applies
not only to consumers who have not registered their telephone numbers on the federal
Do-Not-Call List and, with respect to a particular seller, its company specific do-not-call
list for the seller or insurer whose products are being telemarketed, but perhaps more
importantly also to customers with whom a seller has an existing business
relationship.[2]
These amendments establish important new compliance requirements for both
insurance companies and their distributors and marketers requiring (1) specific opt-out
mechanisms for consumers who receive these types of calls and (2) callers to obtain
the prior written consent for placing prerecorded telemarketing calls to consumers,
including consumers with whom a caller has a pre-existing business relationship.
The Amendment finalized the FTC’s original notice of proposed rulemaking regarding
prerecorded telemarketing calls or use of predictive or robotic dialers for telemarketing
purposes and resulted in the rejection of its former Nov. 17, 2004, proposed safe harbor
approach for prerecorded telemarketing calls made to persons with whom the seller has
an existing business relationship, which would have permitted prerecorded
telemarketing calls to existing customers if the calls complied with contemplated
amendments to the existing call abandonment safe harbor rule.
Based on the comments that the FTC received in response to the Amendment, the FTC
discerned four major themes:
1) prerecorded message calls are abusive and coercive to consumers,