[Editor's note: As of July, 29, 2005 Congress and the FCC have acted in our favor. Read about it here.]
The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) new regulation governing fax communications is set to take effect on July 1, 2005. In its current form, this regulation is problematic for independent professional insurance agents.
Notably, the regulations prohibit sending unsolicited, advertising faxes to anyone without obtaining prior written permission to do so, even if an ongoing, existing business relationship with that individual or business exists. Even faxes that solicit a product as an aside would be prohibited. The previous rules made an exception to this prohibition for established business relationships.
Currently the Senate is taking action to correct these over-reaching regulations by passing legislation that would affect the way in which fax solicitations could be sent to consumers. The bill, S. 714, would amend the current complete prohibition of unsolicited faxing of advertisements to allow for faxing when the sender has an existing business relationship with the recipient and the solicitation contains a rather specific notification.
PIA supports this legislation. S. 714 has already passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee and is headed for a full Senate vote. It is anticipated that the House of Representatives will move soon to pass a companion bill to S. 714. However, since legislation is unlikely to pass through the House and Senate by July 1, the FCC needs to grant a "stay" which would give the House and Senate until the end of the year to move on legislation.
Your Action is Needed! We’ve already composed two messages—one to the FCC and one to your Members of Congress—that you can send easily right from your computer.
1. Contact the FCC and tell them to grant the six-month extension request so that Congress will have until the end of the year to pass corrective legislation. Send this message here.
2. Contact your Members of Congress and let them know that insurance agents must be allowed to contact their clients via fax and that S. 714 is a good and necessary bill. Send this message here.
June 17, 2005