We are often asked why a policy has taxes or stamping fees on the proposal or policy?
If your policy has Excess Lines Taxes and a Stamping fee your insurance policy is placed with a non-admitted carrier. For more information on what a non-admitted carrier is click here. (link to other post)
New York state excess lines insurance policies have a 3.6% tax applied to them and a .02% stamping fee.
The taxes are imposed on the excess lines broker by the insurance superintendent. The stamping fee is charged by ELANY for the stamping of policies. The taxes are passed along to you as the policyholder.
The taxes are and fees are one of the negatives to working with a non-admitted carrier. However, the taxes and fees do not stop large amounts of insurance from being placed with non-admitted insurance carriers. In fact $3,561,279,500 of premiums were placed with non-admitted carriers in New York State in 2015 alone per ELANY. (http://www.elany.org/statistics.aspx?d=1914)
I would be willing to bet of the $1.1B in General Liability premium placed with non-admitted carriers a vast majority of that was contractor’s general liability insurance. Very few admitted carriers exist for any type of contractor in New York, and virtually none exist for any contractor working in the 5 boroughs. The non-admitted or excess lines market is a very important component of many contractors insurance programs. We work with several top Excess lines brokers to place these tough risks.
