• General AVS Questions
• Government Exemption Questions
• Filing Exemption General Questions

General AVS Questions

What is the cost to receive a portfolio valuation file? 
Valuation files are part of your annual fee. You can request one at any time with no additional fees involved.

Do I need to request a valuation file for each quarter or will I receive it automatically?
Valuation files are ad-hoc with the exception of the year-end file. For year-end, you will simply make sure the correct option is checked under your year-end order.

If an insurance company had subsidiaries is there an additional fee per company?
The Exhibit A of the license agreement lists all subsidiaries that will be sharing the portfolio associated with the agreement. The assets of all companies listed are calculated as part of the annual fee, so they may change the fee level of the company, but there is no charge per company. 

What is the deadline for submitting files and requesting valuations?
Most customers submit an update file with new CUSIPs and then request a valuation. This can be done at any time, and both will process overnight so your valuation file will be available the next morning. The exceptions to this time frame are Month-, Quarter- and Year-end, where the system will typically be shut down at 5 p.m. the last day of the month and may remain down for processing for up to 2 days.

There is a security in my portfolio that is not showing any information on my Valuation File.
Securities are dropped from the VOS database as a result of no Annual Update being filed. Therefore, if you had a security in your portfolio that had not been updated, but had also not been removed either manually or through the batch update process, it would continue to appear in your portfolio but would show no information.

I have a security in my AVS Valuation or Listing that has no check digit.
When a check digit and all other data is missing from an AVS Valuation or Listing, that means that the security is in the user's portfolio, but is not available in the AVS Product. It is intentionally put in the Valuation or Listing as a sign to the user that the security is in their portfolio even if AVS doesn't have any other information about it.

*For specific direction on how to maintain your Full-Access AVS System Portfolio, please see your AVS User's Guide.

Government Exempt Questions

Are U.S. government securities still exempt from filing?
With enhancements deployed in the ISIS August 2004 release, government exempt securities, per P&P Manual Appendices 16, 17 and 18, will no longer be displayed as Filing Exempt or Unconfirmed Filing Exempt. If you have these government exempt securities in your AVS portfolio, then you're AVS Valuation and Listing files will display only the CUSIP information for those securities. All other fields for the government exempt securities will be blank. In addition, you will no longer be able to add these securities to your portfolio.

Filing Exemption General Questions

What is FE?
FE, or filing exemption, is a new rule adopted by the NAIC which grants an exemption from filing with the SVO for bonds and preferred stock that have been assigned a current, monitored rating by an NRSRO. FE replaces the PE, or provisionally exempt, rule. FE also includes filing exemption for public common stock, but the basis for the exemption is the same as it was under the PE policy – that is, public common stock that is not restricted to transferability and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange or American Stock Exchange or traded on the NASDAQ National Market System does not need to be filed with the SVO.

How is FE Defined?
FE is defined as follows: "FE means exempt from filing with the SVO and is used by an insurance company to report an NAIC Designation for an exempt security on the NAIC Financial Statement Blank. The administrative symbol FE is used with an NAIC 1 through 6 Designation and signifies that the reported security meets the criteria set forth in Part Four, Section 2 (c) of this Manual and that the NAIC Designation was arrived at by the insurer by converting the NRSRO rating(s) into a corresponding NAIC Designation in accordance with Section 4 of the Appendix to this Manual."

What are the criteria for FE?
The only FE criterion is that the security, at the CUSIP/PPN/CINS level, has an NRSRO rating. It is only necessary to have one NRSRO rating. If more than one NRSRO rating exists, then the second-highest NRSRO rating is used. Split ratings are resolved in accordance with the "second highest" portion of the rule. Split-rated securities are not filed with the SVO.

* For more detailed information regarding FE securities or other SVO information, please visit the SVO page on the NAIC's Web site at /svo.htm.