Two Troutman Sanders LLP attorneys recently published an article in a national publication discussing how to avoid risks in electronic delivery of insurance documents with an E-SIGN compliance strategy.

Alan Wingfield and Michael Huggins co-authored an article Avoid Pitfalls in Electronic Delivery of Documents with an E-SIGN Compliance Strategy in the American Bar Association Journal.

The full article is available by clicking here.

In the article, Alan and Michael discussed federal and state laws impose requirements for delivering documents electronically to consumers, including with respect to insurers, agents, and brokers. The federal Electronic Records and Signatures in Commerce Act (commonly referred to as “E-SIGN”) requires a consumer’s informed, affirmative consent to receive the documents electronically. But states may “reverse-preempt” E-SIGN by adopting the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), loosening the minimum legal requirements for electronic delivery.

The consent and disclosure requirements that apply therefore may vary among three camps: (1) the majority of states that have adopted the UETA and do not require the consumer consent and disclosures that E-SIGN requires; (2) approximately 15 states that have adopted the UETA but keep the federal consumer consent and disclosure requirements; and (3) three states—New York, Illinois, and Washington—that have not adopted the UETA.

The article discusses a compliance strategy for delivering documents to consumers electronically across multiple jurisdictions would be to comply with E-SIGN as establishing a minimum set of national standards for effective delivery of documents.