When and Where: Participants from NY DOI: Jackie Catalfamo Colleen Draper Dorothy Hernandez William Denn. Participants from Prometric:

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1 New York Department of Financial Services in conjunction with Prometric Hold Public Information Meeting to Provide Information about the Insurance License Examination Program The New York Department of Financial Services in conjunction with Prometric will hold a public meeting to discuss the examination program for insurance licenses. When and Where: Friday, November 15, :00 a.m. Concierge Conference Centers 780 Third Avenue, C-2 Vanderbilt Theatre New York, NY Participants from NY DOI: Jackie Catalfamo Colleen Draper Dorothy Hernandez William Denn Participants from Prometric: Colleen Caulfield, VP Education, Government and Financial Portfolio Tracy Gold, Team Leader, CE and Insurance Laurie Sadowski, Client Services Manager, CE and Insurance Robert Corrigan, Test Developer Tina Chang, Test Developer AGENDA 10:00 10:15 Welcome and Introduction (NY Dept Financial Services/Prometric ) 10:15 11:00 Overview of Testing Registration Procedures (Prometric) 11:00 11:30 Overview of Exam Content Outlines (Tina/Bobby) 11:30 11:45 Break 11:45 12:30 Overview of Exam Content Outlines (cont) 12:30 1:00 Questions (NY Dept. Financial Services/Prometric)

2 MEETING MINUTES: Prometric Transition Transition to Prometric has gone very well. Colleen is main point of contact for the state. Prometric and DOW have entered into a 5 year agreement. There will be an Exam Review Workshop in January 2014 to adjust content outline and review items to ensure appropriate updates are made and reflected in exam content. It is important to ensure that instructor lists and names on applications match exam to exam registration. If they are not an exact match in the database, they will get sent back to the applicant. Overview of Testing Registration and Testing Procedures Candidate has to complete pre-licensing requirements, encouraged to do before the exam Important to register with the name that is on their ID Pass exam Submit a completed license application to the department within 2 years of passing the exam Become a licensed producer Candidates may register with Prometric either on line or by calling Monday Contact Center Hours Monday - Friday 8 am 8 pm EST ID Policy On test day candidates must have 2 valid forms of ID One bearing photo and signature, one with signature Acceptable forms of ID include passport, government issued ID, drivers license Candidate Information Bulletin will be updated in January Question from Audience: Q. Candidate couldn t register with Apple or Mac or iphone. A. Applications work best with IE Q. 2 cases where SS # s started with number 8 (new sequence) had problems registering on line? A. If issues arise scheduling via website, please direct candidates to call Prometric s #800 number Q. Is the registration website secure, as confidential information such as SS # provided?

3 A. Yes, is the site completely secure using SSL and PCI compliance Q. Staff at a Prometric site made comments about number of people who are passing or failing. A. It is not appropriate for test center staff to discuss that type of information with candidates. We will address with test centers by messaging out to district manager. Q. How many times a student can re-take the exam? A. There is no limit to the number of re-takes. Q. If a student wants to register after failing an exam how long do they have to wait? A. The student must wait 48 hours to reschedule Q. Are all exams available in Spanish? A. No, only 3 exam titles are currently offered in Spanish Q. Feedback regarding issues scheduling an appointment at certain sites in November and December? A. Prometric has over 3,000 available appointment blocks between now and the end of the year throughout the state. Q. What text books do you recommend to help instructors with courses? A. As it is a conflict of interest, Prometric does not make recommendations on text books Q. Are there sample questions for exams? A. Yes, sample exam questions are available for practice purposes. Candidates who are interested in taking the practice exam must pay $25 to register. Currently only three major lines of exams are available online: Life, Health, and Property & Casualty. Q. When will exam content be updated? A. After January ERW, exams will be refreshed within 3 months after the workshop Q. What should course providers do if content is outdated? A. Course providers should provide that feedback to the NY DOI. Q. Who participates in ERW? A. Subject Matter Experts (SME s) who are either producers or license holders, perhaps retired but who have extensive experience in the field of insurance.

4 Content Outline Prometric: Content outline review process Review with the state and then bring the pre-approved changes to the ERW Allow the SMEs to review the content outlines and provide additional changes. SME s at the ERW can also provide feedback on percentages of amount of content in each section The state approves or rejects the changes provided by the SMEs. Usually there are very minor changes. Content Outline-- Suggestions from the Audience: Focus on more application based questions vs. recall questions can be made into NY specific content Special provisions changes to ISO form; should send out communication regarding upcoming changes six months prior to the new launch date All ISO updates need to be in line with the exam The content outlines are too vague. It would be better if the policies can be defined a bit more clearly (e.g. specifically what one should know pertaining to a policy instead of just providing a long list of policies). The Life Insurance content outline is very well-defined, but it would be better if topics can be broken down more. The topic areas in the content outlines should be presented in a more logical way. Now it is somewhat out of order. Students get confused by why certain things are listed before others. Try to present it like a text book. Approach teachers in a way that they will most effectively learn and build a logical progression of information. Additional Suggestions and Discussion: Try to create items that are more fit for entry level producers The state should define what minimal competency for entry level candidates (job descriptions; task/knowledge statements)unfortunately, we cannot invite schools or instructors to participate in ERW s because of conflict of interest If you have individuals that you know that would be interested in participating in ERW, please recommend to Colleen Draper at DOI Strive for an exam that that it is fair and balanced exam: Exam is based off of level of difficulty IRT based off a giant bank of items - each question based off difficulty, discriminators of cognitive or adaptive standpoint, and percentage expected value of someone guess

5 Instead of creating set forms of exams, all Prometric insurance content is delivered through bank-based testing, which decreases the risk of item exposure. Every year after the ERW, Test Developers assemble a pool of items based on the approved items, references, and content outlines from a large item bank. From that selected pool of items, the testing system applies a Prometric-owned algorithm to select the items each candidate will see on the exam. The algorithm is based on Item Response Theory (IRT). The algorithm overall creates a more fair, balanced exam for the candidates. Certified entry level professionals will continue to receive training through applied experience and continuing education. Training should not stop at the classroom. We will try to review as many items as possible during the upcoming ERW to make sure items related to current policies and products are included on the exam. We will also have a chance to weed out outdated content. 5 items are pretest, unscored items. These pretest items do not count towards exam.