Lawmakers in Utah introduced legislation this week that would restrict the availability of medical stop-loss insurance to small employers that self-insure their health benefits plans.

Meanwhile, a stop-loss bill that had been placed on hold in Minnesota has been removed from consideration for this legislative session.

Unlike similar measures introduced in California, Minnesota and Rhode Island, which would preclude medical stop-loss insurers from issuing policies with specific deductibles below $60,000, the Utah measure would set a specific attachment point at $10,000.

However, the Utah measure also contains a provision requiring stop-loss insurers to pay claims incurred but not reported if the plan terminates. The bill also would prohibit lasering, a practice by stop-loss insurers of setting higher specific deductibles on plan members with pre-existing conditions.

The Utah measure, known as the Small Employer Stop-Loss Insurer Act, also applies only to groups with 50 or fewer employees. The measures in the other states do not specify the size of employer groups that would be affected.

Minnesota State Sen. James P. Metzen, D-St. Paul, chairman of the Minnesota Senate Commerce Committee, where that state's stop-loss bill was introduced in late February, had instructed stakeholders to work out their differences before bringing the bill back to the committee for consideration. However, when it became clear that a consensus could not be reached, the legislation was withdrawn, according to a bulletin issued by the Self-Insurance Institute of America, which has been monitoring stop-loss legislation nationwide.

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Though SIIA was not directly involved in the Minnesota lobbying efforts, it said it shared with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, which had been pushing for passage of the bill, a report on the stop-loss insurance market published by the Self-Insurance Educational Foundation Inc., an SIIA-affiliated organization.

The report, released Feb. 14, found that employers with 100 or fewer covered employees represent approximately one-quarter of the medical stop-loss insurance market, if the market is measured by the number of self-insured employers. Conducted by Seattle-based actuarial consulting firm Milliman Inc., the report includes aggregate policy data from eight of the nation's largest medical stop-loss insurers representing approximately 50% of the marketplace.