The California insurance department's final emergency regulations to enact the state's new life settlement law have been approved.

The regulations took effect Thursday, according to the insurance department, which forwarded a copy of the regulations to The Life Settlements Wire. The rules were approved by the state Office of Administrative Law.

The insurance department plans to publish applications Monday on its website for providers and brokers. The rules also will be published on the website.

Jennifer Chambers, senior staff counsel for the insurance department, said in an email that the latest rules are essentially the same as the previous version with a few technical changes.

Michael Freedman, senior vice president for government affairs with provider Coventry First, said he couldn't comment on the rules because he hadn't had a chance to read them yet.

Ken Cooley, principal consultant to the state Senate Banking, Finance & Insurance Committee, wasn't immediately available for comment, but said earlier that the previous version of the rules appeared to adhere to the state life settlement law. The new law, which regulates the market for the first time, took effect July 1.

Coventry and the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA) had supported legislation, SB 1242, seeking to rein in the insurance department when it appeared that earlier proposed rules may have overstepped the department's authority and did not follow the law, SB 98, which passed last year.

But the author of the settlement legislation, Sen. Ron Calderon, a Democrat from the Los Angeles suburb of Montebello, intended to drop his support for SB 1242 after the department revised the rules to follow the law, Cooley said earlier this month.

Source: California Regulations