2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-SIX - Insurance (§§ 101 — 10377) › Subtitle 1 - Insurance Generally (§§ 101 — 4513) › Chapter 40 - Rehabilitation and Liquidation (§§ 4001 — 4054) › § 4003 - Definitions

For the purposes of this chapter:
(1) Creditor or claimant.— Means a person having a claim, whether matured or not, liquidated or not, secured or not, absolute, fixed or contingent.
(2) General assets.— Means all property, real, personal, or otherwise, not specifically mortgaged, pledged, deposited or otherwise encumbered for the security or benefit of specified persons or classes of persons. As to specifically encumbered property, “general assets” includes all such property or its proceeds in excess of the amount required to discharge the sum or sums of money secured thereby. Assets held in trust and on deposit for the security or benefit of all policyholders or all policyholders and creditors in more than one state shall be treated as general assets.
(3) Administrator.— Means any liquidator, rehabilitator, receiver, or conservator, as required by the context.
(4) Insurer.— Means any person who has transacted, purports to transact, is transacting or is licensed [to] transact an insurance business, and is or has been subject to the authority of, or to liquidation, rehabilitation, reorganization, supervision or conservation by any insurance commissioner. For the purposes of this chapter, any other persons included in § 4002 of this title shall be deemed to be insurers.
(5) Foreign insurer.— Means an insurer incorporated or organized pursuant to the laws of a state of the United States.
(6) Alien insurer.— Means a foreign insurer not organized pursuant to the laws of a state, but authorized to do business in one or more of such states.
(7) Guaranty association.— Means the Puerto Rico Miscellaneous Insurance Guaranty Association created by §§ 3801 et seq. of this title, and the Puerto Rico Life and Disability Insurance Guaranty Association created by §§ 3901 et seq. of this title, and any other similar entity now or hereafter created by the Legislature of Puerto Rico for the payment of claims of insolvent insurers.
(8) Foreign guaranty association.— Means any guaranty association now in existence or hereafter created by the legislature of any state.
(9) State.— Means the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any state, district or territory of the United States.
(10) Domiciliary state.— Means the state in which an insurer is incorporated or organized, or, in the case of an alien insurer, his/her entry status upon entering the United States.
(11) Reciprocal state.— Means any state in which provisions similar to those of §§ 4015(1), 4048, 4049 and 4051–4053 of this title are substantially and effectively in force, and in which provisions requiring that the Commissioner or an equivalent official be the administrator of an insurer subject to a receivership proceeding are in effect, and in which provisions for the prevention of fraudulent conveyances and preferential transfers are in effect.
(12) Ancillary state.— Means any state other than a domiciliary state.
(13) Insolvency or insolvent.— Means the condition in which an insurer’s liabilities exceed its admitted assets pursuant to Chapter 5 of this Code.
(14) Just cause for a property or obligation.— Exists when:
(a) In exchange for such property or obligation, as a fair equivalent thereof, and in good faith, property is conveyed or services are rendered, or an obligation is incurred or an antecedent debt is satisfied, or
(b) such property or obligation is received in good faith to secure a present advance or antecedent debt in an amount not disproportionately small as compared to the value of the property or obligation received.
(15) Foreign country.— Means any nation, territory, place or region outside the sovereignty of the United States.
(16) Person.— Shall have the same meaning [as that given in] § 104 of this title.
(17) Receivership proceedings.— Means any proceeding commenced against an insurer for the purpose of its liquidation, rehabilitation, reorganization or conservation.
(18) Property of the insurer or property of the estate.— Means:
(a) Any right, title, and interest of the insurer in a property, whether tangible or intangible, including contractual rights and any other proprietary interest recognized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico;
(b) entitlements that existed prior to the entry of a rehabilitation or liquidation order and entitlements that may arise from the provisions of this chapter or from other provisions of law allowing the liquidator or rehabilitator to void prior transfers or to assert other rights, and
(c) all files, records and information that are otherwise the property of the insurer, in whatever form maintained, including, but not limited to, claims and claim files, lists of insured parties, application files, litigation files, rate books, underwriting policies, personnel records, or financial records, or similar records within the possession, custody, or control of the general agent, third-party administrator, data processing company, accountant, attorney, affiliate, parent company or subsidiary, or other person.
(19) Reinsurance.— Means a transaction or contract whereby a reinsurer agrees to indemnify a ceding insurer against all or part of any loss that the ceding insurer may sustain under a policy that the ceding insurer issues or shall issue.
(20) Special deposit claim.— Means any claim secured by a deposit made pursuant to a statute for the security or benefit of a limited class or classes of persons, but not including claims secured by general assets.
(21) Secured claim.— Means any claim secured by mortgage, trust deed, pledge, deposit as security, escrow, or otherwise, but does not include a special deposit claim or a claim against general assets. The term also includes claims which more than four (4) months before the commencement of a receivership proceeding have become a lien upon specific assets by reason of judicial process.
(22) Preferred claim.— Means any claim with respect to which this chapter accords priority of payment from the general assets of the insurer.
(23) Transfer.— Shall include the sale or any other different, direct or indirect manner, of disposing of or parting with property or an interest thereon, or the possession thereof or of fixing a lien upon property or upon an interest thereon, absolutely or conditionally, voluntarily, by or without a judicial proceeding. The retention of the title of the lien on property delivered to a debtor shall be deemed a transfer suffered by the debtor.
(24) Receivership Court.— Means the hall of sessions of the Court of First Instance, San Juan Part, to which rehabilitation and liquidation proceedings are assigned.
History —Ins. Code, added as § 40.030 on Aug. 17, 1991, No. 72, § 1; Dec. 14, 2007, No. 206, § 3.