26-3-315. Requirements for audit committees.

(a) An audit committee shall be directly responsible for the appointment, compensation and oversight of the work of any accountant, including resolution of disagreements between management and the accountant regarding financial reporting, employed for the purpose of preparing or issuing the audited financial report or related work pursuant to this article and each accountant shall report directly to the audit committee.

(b) The audit committee of an insurer or group of insurers shall be responsible for overseeing the insurer's internal audit function and granting the persons performing the function suitable authority and resources to fulfill their responsibilities if required by W.S. 26-3-316.

(c) Each member of the audit committee shall be a member of the board of directors of the insurer or a member of the board of directors of an entity elected pursuant to W.S. 26-3-302(a)(vi) and subsection (f) of this section.

(d) In order to be considered independent for purposes of this section, a member of the audit committee shall not, other than in his capacity as a member of the audit committee, the board of directors or any other board committee, accept any consulting, advisory or other compensatory fee from the entity or be an affiliated person of the entity or any subsidiary thereof. If any other provision of law requires board participation by otherwise nonindependent members, that law shall prevail and those members may participate in the audit committee and be designated as independent for audit committee purposes unless they are an officer or employee of the insurer or one (1) of its affiliates.

(e) If a member of the audit committee ceases to be independent for reasons outside the member's reasonable control, that person, with notice by the responsible entity to the state, may remain an audit committee member of the responsible entity until the earlier of the next annual meeting of the responsible entity or one (1) year from the occurrence of the event that caused the member to be no longer independent.

(f) To exercise the election of the controlling person to designate the audit committee for purposes of this article, the ultimate controlling person shall provide written notice to the commissioners of the affected insurers. Notification shall be made timely prior to the issuance of the statutory audit report and include a description of the basis for the election. The election may be changed through notice to the commissioner by the insurer which shall include a description of the basis for the change. The election shall remain in effect for perpetuity, until rescinded.

(g) The audit committee shall require the accountant that performs for an insurer any audit required by this article to timely report to the audit committee in accordance with the requirements of Statement on Auditing Standards 61, Communication with Audit Committees, or its replacement, including:

(i) All significant accounting policies and material permitted practices;

(ii) All material alternative treatments of financial information within statutory accounting principles that have been discussed with management officials of the insurer, ramifications of the use of the alternative disclosures and treatments and the treatment preferred by the accountant; and

(iii) Other material written communications between the accountant and the management of the insurer, such as any management letter or schedule of unadjusted differences.

(h) If an insurer is a member of an insurance holding company system, the reports required under subsection (g) of this section may be provided to the audit committee on an aggregate basis for insurers in the holding company system, provided that any substantial differences among insurers in the system are identified to the audit committee.

(j) The proportion of independent audit committee members shall meet or exceed the following criteria, except that the commissioner has authority afforded by state law to require the entity's board to enact improvements to the independence of the audit committee membership if the insurer is in any RBC action level event, meets one (1) or more of the standards of an insurer deemed to be in hazardous financial condition or otherwise exhibits qualities of a troubled insurer:

(i) For insurers with prior calendar year direct written and assumed premiums of five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000.00) or less the audit committee shall have a majority of members that are independent and the insurers are encouraged to structure their audit committees with at least seventy-five percent (75%) of the audit committee members being independent;

(ii) For insurers with prior calendar year direct written and assumed premiums of more than five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000.00) at least seventy-five percent (75%) of the members of the audit committee shall be independent;

(iii) For purposes of this subsection, prior calendar year direct written and assumed premiums shall be the combined total of direct premiums and assumed premiums from nonaffiliates for the reporting entities.

(k) An insurer with direct written and assumed premiums, excluding premiums reinsured with the federal crop insurance corporation and federal flood program, less than five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000.00) may make application to the commissioner for a waiver from the requirements of this section based on hardship. The insurer shall file, with its annual statement filing, the approval for relief from this section with the states that it is licensed in or doing business in and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. If the nondomestic state accepts electronic filing with the NAIC, the insurer shall file the approval in an electronic format acceptable to the NAIC.

(m) This section shall not apply to foreign or alien insurers licensed in this state or an insurer that is a SOX compliant entity or a direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of a SOX compliant entity, as defined in W.S. 26-3-302(a)(xiii).

(n) An insurer or group of insurers that is not required to have independent audit committee members or only a majority of independent audit committee members because the total written and assumed premium is below the threshold and subsequently becomes subject to any of the independence requirements due to changes in premiums shall have one (1) year following the year the threshold is exceeded to comply with the independence requirements. An insurer that becomes subject to any of the independence requirements as a result of a business combination shall have one (1) calendar year following the date of acquisition or combination to comply with the independence requirements.