West Virginia Code Chapter 33. Insurance § 33-12-2. Definitions

(a) “Business entity” means a corporation, association, partnership, limited liability company, or other legal entity.

(b) “Home state” means the District of Columbia and any state or territory of the United States in which an insurance producer maintains his or her principal place of residence or principal place of business and is licensed to act as an insurance producer.

(c) “Individual” means any private or natural person as distinguished from a partnership, corporation, limited liability company or other legal entity.

(d) “Insurance” means any of the lines of authority in section ten, article one of this chapter.

(e) “Insurance agency” means an individual, corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other legal entity except for an employee of the individual, corporation, partnership, association, limited liability company, or other legal entity, and other than an insurer or an adjuster as defined by section twelve-b, article one of this chapter, which employs individuals licensed to engage in activity or whose members engage in any activity be performed only by a licensed individual insurance producer or solicitor. It shall not include sole proprietor or partnerships in which there is only one licensed insurance producer.

(f) “Insurance producer” means a person required to be licensed under the laws of this state to sell, solicit or negotiate insurance. Wherever the word “agent” appears in this chapter, it shall mean an individual insurance producer.

(g) “Insurer” means every person engaged in the business of making contracts of insurance under section two, article one of this chapter.

(h) “License” means a document issued by this state's insurance commissioner authorizing a person to act as an insurance producer for the lines of authority specified in the document. The license itself does not create any authority, actual, apparent or inherent, in the holder to represent or commit an insurance carrier.

(i) “Limited line credit insurance” includes credit life, credit disability, credit property, credit unemployment, involuntary unemployment, mortgage life, mortgage guaranty, mortgage disability, guaranteed automobile protection (gap) insurance and any other form of insurance offered in connection with an extension of credit that is limited to partially or wholly extinguishing that credit obligation that the insurance commissioner determines should be designated a form of limited line credit insurance.

(j) “Limited line credit insurance producer” means an individual who sells, solicits or negotiates one or more forms of limited line credit insurance coverage to individuals through a master, corporate, group or individual policy.

(k) “Limited lines insurance” means those lines of insurance defined in section thirty-two of this article or any other line of insurance that the insurance commissioner considers necessary to recognize for the purposes of complying with subsection (g), section twelve of this article.

(l) “Limited lines producer” means an individual authorized by the insurance commissioner to sell, solicit or negotiate limited lines insurance.

(m) “Negotiate” means the act of conferring directly with or offering advice directly to a purchaser or prospective purchaser of a particular contract of insurance concerning any of the substantive benefits, terms or conditions of the contract: Provided, That the individual engaged in that act either sells insurance or obtains insurance from insurers for purchasers.

(n) “Person” means an individual or a business entity.

(o) “Sell” means to exchange a contract of insurance by any means, for money or its equivalent, on behalf of an insurance company.

(p) “Solicit” means attempting to sell insurance or asking or urging a person to apply for a particular kind of insurance from a particular company.

(q) “Terminate” means the cancellation of the relationship between an insurance producer and the insurer or the termination of a producer's authority to transact insurance.

(r) “Uniform application” means the current version of the NAIC uniform application for resident and nonresident producer licensing.

(s) “Uniform business entity application” means the current version of the NAIC uniform business entity application for resident and nonresident insurance agencies.