the issues in this case are st whether the filed rate doctrine bars contract and fraud claims when an insurance company sells an inflation protection feature on a long term care insurance policy without disclosing that the premiums could later rise due to inflation among other factors and so i asked when i started out  that choice that the filed rate doctrine is a creature of federal common law and that may be true when it regards federal regulatory actions and rates but  as you know for example the case clark versus prudential insurance company cited in the briefs demonstrates when you're talking about insurance regulations which are a creature of state law the filed rate do it would need to be the state where that applies to the group as a whole or the jurisdiction in this case the district of columbia otherwise they would have to figure this out it's a state lab case you know so  for the premise that the the state where the group policy is issued provides a law that governs the members of the group for the simple reason that the rights of the group should be uniform throughout the group and in the case of group policies you know should by their to employers as this works fairly well where employees might be scattered but the employer will have a principal dealing with long term care insurance but i think your argument here is that group health insurance and life insurance seems to be more and now i guess then say you know casualty insurance that's correct and an important point to bear in mind with all the issues in this case is that long term care insurance is a relatively recent innovation and that it's a somewhat you know with analogous to a hybrid of life and disability tried to are at least assert of authority over d the crisis in washington state is that common nationwide group policies whether we're talking about life disability or  delivered in one jurisdiction these may have certificates under it issued to individuals in another jurisdiction and i think that some care must be taken i think on the primary regulator for the policy now you know what could a conflict arise between d c and washington requirements that that might need to be worked out i suppose but  enough therefore you're going to pay a lot more when they can run that amount for the rest of the term and the same thing happens for something that of disability i suppose but this is the this is the w i look at these this whole situation were just all of the blue they basically doubled the premiums and it's based on what i've been against a file rate document in washington that seems to be pretty well or to prevent insurance failures essentially but i think it also broaches be a question which i think is the most maybe at the at the heart of this case can an insurance company bind itself contractually and you know through its representations of the matter of fraud can it bind itself as regards future premium increases and with respect to the long term care products in particular i think this is a very special concern and the answer should be yes for the simple reason that a you know the value of this product the nature of the products is so inextricably bound up with the price and the price over time i mean price is always a very material term but when you when you're talking about the purposes of long term care and the and the value to the consumer and the opportunities passed up by a consumer who might be you know investing in this type of product in which the various insureds lived he asked you how it typically works i mean you're talking you're answering judgment right now by pointing out you know the unique features of a long term care policy but one might say the same thing about applies as opposed to washington state law then that means that insurers always have to go to that particular state to get their rates approved because that's the law that would apply in any subsequent dispute so what do you ensure it's typically do and other kinds of policies that have been around for longer than long term care candidly i'm not familiar with the process for increasing premiums on life insurance policies i haven't heard of any such i might just you know general understanding had been that that you know such and such premiums were you know a matter of bargaining and but better but i would say reza regulatory matter based on the regulations in this case is that the premium would be submitted to d c and you know then perhaps you know as a separate  overlapping matter submitted to washington in the context of you know this policy is lightest in d c and should be and the washington regulator would be entitle all the dollars holders under the into the nationwide group to that uniform premium that was established in in d c and it's important to note also that the inflation protection theory is relatively independent of this choice of law question because it stands on more on the footing of consumer deception and  the importation of a contract term reflecting the non disclosure that that inflation protection would not protect you from inflation applied to the premiums thank you if you want to save the rest of your time for rebuttal i would your honor thank you this is an unusual case because the plaintiff is asking essentially a chicago court to find that a jurisdiction other than the jurisdiction that passed on this rate increase may be able  national group insurance policy at particular with respect to section or ninety to the restatement nd of conflicts which does seem to contemplate comment age provision is relevant to the choice of law question that we're talking about here because the decision about whether or not the filed rate doctrine applies to given regulatory scheme is almost always decided by a court in  interpret deciding on things like groups i think an answer can be found in the c n a rate filing that was submitted to d c and i can give you some broader context on how these rate increase issues come up but generally you're correct the restatement suggests that our contract claim as opposed to fraud claims the law the side of the policy applies under such any choice of law analysis c regulator itself corrected c n n and said no you don't have that many policyholders you can't have that many groups cited in d c you must mean d c certificate holders c n a responded yes that's correct  recognized that its jurisdiction over the rate increase was limited to d c certificate holders and c n a explicitly states you see the new premium rate and this is cited this is the rate yes i mean there will be there will be states that will take no position on the rate increase and will defer to the district of columbia's decision on the rating because there are other states so i mean it was disclosed in the rate filing to washington that these are group allah sees the request was limited to the significant holders in washington for didn't identify the policy forms that were issued and there are multiple policy forms affected by this rate increase and the one that this lawsuit is about is just one of many that were within that rate phone i think i think the mccarthy decision answers the choice of law question relative to the filed rate doctrine because of the premise of the fall break doctrine is that jurisdictions create regulatory schemes and defer to the expertise of regulators in those schemes to  pass on issues such as range and such a scheme is created in washington and washington supreme court as the relevant jurisdiction as to that scheme has concluded that final rate doctrine applies process for evaluating rates and i don't think there's been any disagreement among the parties that washington has such a scheme and there can't i don't think be any disagreement that washington clearly believes that it had jurisdiction that arises because the policies are unique because if you've got a policy that side just in one place and you know group members such a ticket holders that are spread out in different places so how did i understand the problem that you said apparently the st place to look is in the regulations and in the regulations for washington it's pretty clear least it clearly states that the watch insurance code governs all insurance and insurance transactions in the state for affecting subjects located located wholly or in part to be performed within the state right there washington is taking the position through its legislation that the insurance a sex washington policy and that that's where i'm from and i'm wondering whether we may need some additional briefing on this i'm happy to supply that it's that would help the court because i i don't i don't believe this particular situation has ever arisen before and i don't think the plaintiff really has supplied any argument or legal authority for his position and i think it's a pretty bed rock proposition that states regulate rates at a local level and the next territoriality issue goes to the question of whether or not a state which has jurisdiction over the rates in its we didn't say whether because this is this is a pretty fundamental problem of that pricing group policies like this and it sounds pretty tangled  very wide to it about what kind of risks there are from one place to another just as for cars and i think the same is for people and whether it's prompt term care or life insurance or various and sundry other things where somebody pays a premium and they can start paying a premium when they're a lot younger which would normally be a lower premium this time goes by this person did exactly that and that's what he's claiming you'd see jumped up on him when he child read doctrine holds is that filed rate fountain proof rate controls the parties agreements now and that the parties are presumed to know both that defiles exists and also that the filed health but premiums will change uniformly for people like you right i'm paraphrasing but that's that would be without any suggestion that there would be geographic differences geographic difference however does it i think the real issue about whether or not that's a material issue to somebody buying a policy in two thousand and whether or not the district of columbia insurance department o the washington insurance department is going to rule on a rate increase twenty years in the future and setting that issue is you don't think rates you don't think rates twenty years in the future or a long term care policy are going to be material to the insured i think the rates are definitely material what i'm saying i don't think is material is the notion that i only bought this policy because i thought the district of columbia could be the only regulatory body to rely on a reading of these you think it might be something for understand that but we would we're talking here about the terms of the master policy correct we have talking about that yes  washington and get it approved and it was partially approved after extensive analysis so c n a had no choice but to do this and and washington there's nothing in the washington regulations or any any action that washington has taken d c has taken to suggest that it's ever believed that it has nationwide jurisdiction over any aspect of the rates on this policy and i think once we do the supplemental reading that the court is asking for i think the be clear that there isn't any material case law that would suggest that nationwide insurance rate regulation exists anywhere in the country it just doesn't it's been increase what it told those regulators and how it went about setting up the increase that it did and you know those because it's a question about the insurance company's actions that's what supports the breach of contract case somewhat irrespective of you know how different regulators might be able to interact but in the st instance continental did set up a nationwide premium class under which everyone understood that there would be this uniformity and that there would not exactly what kind of a class you all want to represent here but ready the issue of cross is a shift would seem to imply that something less than  be insurance company could have navigated differently or made a different choice in terms of not implementing a premium or perhaps telling washington hey we made a contractual commitment to our insurance and we have  restrictions with respect to where the policy is tightest and you know it and we can't actually implement consistent with us all the gay sions anything that varies from state to state isn't i don't think it's conceptual impossible for this to either get worked out or else for the insurance company to simply be bound with the policy that in the late that it's old friend the way that it chose to do that so that's  you know that's the st point and as regards the question of you know where the sort of smattering of choice of lot of case law that is cited in the briefs i think that rate making and eventually sort of bled out into the insurance realm at the state level but it's reached a point where this you know this it's a very awkward fit for long term care policies which you know where the where the premium is really embedded with long term interests and the value of the coverage  regarding supplemental briefing of course you know we'd be happy to develop the points mentioned by the court and if there are no further questions i'll submit all right our thanks to both coun