When the phase in is complete, all property-casualty insurers will be on a level playing field with regard to calculation of capital and surplus. In addition to these formula changes, the format for this year's booklet has been extensively modified to make it easier to trace data items. The filing diskette contains both a data input module and a calculation module. In past years, the NAIC has received complaints from users about the difficulty of determining which items are pulled through the data link file and which items must be input manually. In this year's booklet, the cells that contain information that must be input manually are shaded.
Unshaded cells indicate data that can be pulled into the program through the vendor link file.
Additionally, each data item used in the calculation is now shown in a separate cell. This should help to alleviate some of the confusion about data entry requirements. The calculations for this year's industry average MEAF are shown in the box at the top of the page. This year's factor is 0.065, down from 0.077 in 1995. During September, the NAIC sent out a diskette survey to approximately 2,200 health care financing entities.