Moratoriums (Beta)
Warning
This feature is currently in beta and may be subject to change. Before using it in production, please contact your Socotra representative.
Overview
A moratorium is a temporary suspension of certain policy servicing operations and billing operations across a select group of policies. Moratoriums are typically used in scenarios where an insurer, often mandated by a regulatory body, must provide relief to a group of policyholders during a specific time period, such as during a natural disaster or economic hardship.
When creating a moratorium, users have the ability to specify the effective time and end time of the moratorium, the operations to be suspended (such as autopay, cancellations, and delinquency), and the criteria for identifying affected policies (such as product type, geographic location, or other policy attributes). Once a moratorium is active, the system automatically enforces the configuration, ensuring that relevant operations are suspended for all policies that match the specified criteria.
Multiple moratoriums can be active at the same time, and a single policy can be affected by multiple, overlapping moratoriums. If a policy is affected by a moratorium, the inScope flag of the MoratoriumStatus will show as true.
Use Cases
While the primary use case of the moratoriums feature is regulatory compliance, this feature has also been designed to support other forms of underwriting holds, such as a carrier deciding to suspend quotes for new business, and coverage increases as a result of a catastrophe or in response to shifting market conditions.
Moratorium Status
To check if a given policy is currently being governed by a moratorium, users can check the status of the moratorium. This will return a list of all moratoriums for a given policy, including the status of each moratorium, as shown in the example below:
{
"locator": "01K4B2HRJRPM4TTWYHHAA11BB22CC",
"moratoriums": {
"moratorium_1": {
"applicable": true,
"eligible": true,
"inScope": true,
"applicationMode": "optOut"
},
"moratorium_2": {
"applicable": false,
"eligible": false,
"inScope": false,
"applicationMode": "mandatory"
}
}
}
The inScope flag of the MoratoriumStatus object is set to true if the moratorium is currently governing the policy. A moratorium is considered to be inScope for a policy when both of the following conditions are met:
The moratorium is
applicableto the policyThe policy is
eligiblefor the moratorium
Applicability
When created, the Moratorium’s applicationMode determines how the moratorium is applied to policies. The applicationMode can be one of the following:
Mandatory: The moratorium is automatically applied to all eligible policies.
Opt-Out: The moratorium is automatically applied to all eligible policies, unless the policy is explicitly set to opt-out.
Opt-In: The moratorium is not applied to eligible policies, unless the policy is explicitly set to opt-in.
Eligibility
A policy’s eligibility for a moratorium is determined by evaluating the productRules within the moratorium’s policyMatchCriteria.
This will generally involve checking for a match between the value of some data field whose position in the data model is described in the rule’s path, against a list of values provided in the criteriaValues - for example, a moratorium may be defined to be eligible for all policies whose zipCode is one of a list of specified zip codes.
Reporting
An API with to fetch the complete list of policies currently affected by a moratorium is planned for a future release.
Suspending Operations
There are two scopes that can be suspended by a moratorium: policy servicing operations and billing operations. When creating a moratorium, there must be at least one policy servicing operation or billing operation suspension specified.
Policy Servicing Operations
Users can specify a list of transaction categories and transaction types that will be suspended for all policies governed by the moratorium. These values can be specified in the
transactionCategoryandtransactionTypefields of thepolicyHoldScopeobject.transactionTypevalues provide more granular control over the operations to be suspended.Transaction categories and transaction types specified in the
policyHoldScopeobject will be allowed up to theacceptlife cycle state, but will be prevented from proceeding toissued.Quotes can be suspended by including the
issuancetransaction category in thetransactionCategorylist.
Billing Operations
Users can specify a list of billing operations that will be suspended for all policies governed by the moratorium. These operations can be specified using the
billingHoldScopeobject.This can include:
policyInvoicingHold - If
true, no new invoices are generated for policies governed by the moratorium.autopayHold - If
true, autopay will not be triggered for invoices associated with policies governed by the moratorium. Autopay will be rescheduled for 24 hours later until the moratorium ends.deliquencyHold - If
true, new delinquencies for policies governed by the moratorium, will be created, but will remain in thepreGracestate.deferredInvoiceDueOffsetDays - If specified, any invoices deferred by the
policyInvoicingHoldflag, once generated, will have their due date offset by the specified number of days from the end of the moratorium.
Effective Time
By default, only policies issued prior to the effectiveTime are considered for a moratorium. This requirement can be waived by setting the effectiveTimeWaived flag to true. These policies must still meet the eligibility criteria defined in the policyMatchCriteria object.
End Time
A moratorium remains in effect from its effectiveTime through its endTime, even if the end time is not known when the moratorium is created. To facilitate this, the endTime property is optional and can be added later.
When a moratorium ends, all policies that were governed by the moratorium will immediately allow previously suspended operations to resume.
Any policy servicing operations will be permitted to now move beyond the accepted state, but no automatic actions are taken.
Billing workflows such as invoice generation, delinquency, and autopay will resume when their scheduled jobs execute and deferred work queues are processed. Refer to our article on Moratoriums Billing Recovery for more details on the billing recovery process.
Configuration Example
The Texas Department of Insurance has issued bulletin
TDI-B-0914-24, effective September 14, 2024. The duration is not yet known.Invoicing, autopay, and policy cancellations are prohibited for all homeowner policies where the dwelling is in one of the specified zip codes or counties.
Any invoices deferred during the period should have a due date of no sooner than 15 days from the end of the moratorium.
Policyholders may elect to forego the protections offered by the bulletin.
New business policies issued after the moratorium goes into effect are not subject to the protections offered by the bulletin.
Carriers may choose to prohibit other transaction types, such as limit increases or deductible reductions, during the moratorium period.
Affected zip codes: [
75001,75006,75007,75009,75010,75019,75020]Affected counties: [
Dallas,Collin,Rockwall,Kaufman,Ellis]
Product Configuration
{
"products": {
"Ho3": {
"data": {
"dwellingZip": {
"type": "string?"
},
"dwellingCounty": {
"type": "string?"
}
}
},
"Ho6": {
"data": {
"dwellingAddress": {
"type": "Address?"
}
},
"customTypes": {
"Address": {
"data": {
"zip": {
"type": "string?"
},
"county": {
"type": "string?"
}
}
}
}
}
},
"transactionTypes": {
"limitIncrease": {
{
"category" : "change",
"costBearing" : true
}
},
"reduceDeductible": {
{
"category" : "change",
"costBearing" : true
}
}
}
}
Moratorium Configuration
{
"moratoriums": {
"TDI_B_0914_24": {
"type": "disaster",
"description": "test moratorium",
"applicationMode": "optOut",
"effectiveTime": "2025-10-01T00:00:00Z",
"policyMatchCriteria": {
"criteriaValues": {
"zipCode": [
"75001",
"75006",
"75007",
"75009",
"75010",
"75019",
"75020"
],
"counties": [
"Dallas",
"Collin",
"Rockwall",
"Kaufman",
"Ellis"
]
},
"productsRules": {
"rule1": {
"product": "Ho3",
"operator": "OR",
"rules": [
{
"path": "data.dwellingZip",
"criteriaKey": "zipCode"
},
{
"path": "data.dwellingCounty",
"criteriaKey": "counties"
}
]
},
"rule2": {
"product": "Ho6",
"operator": "OR",
"rules": [
{
"path": "data.dwellingAddress.zip",
"criteriaKey": "zipCode"
},
{
"path": "data.dwellingAddress.county",
"criteriaKey": "counties"
}
]
}
}
},
"effectiveTimeWaived": false,
"policyHoldScope": {
"transactionCategory": [
"cancellation"
],
"transactionType": [
"limitIncrease",
"reduceDeductible"
]
},
"billingHoldScope": {
"policyInvoicingHold": true,
"autopayHold": true,
"deferredInvoiceDueOffsetDays": 15
},
"displayName": "TDI Bulletin TDI-B-0914-24"
}
}
}
requiredeffectiveTime datetimeapplicationMode Enum mandatory | optIn | optOut
Indicates whether the moratorium applies to all eligible policies or whether there is an option to opt in or out.billingHoldScope BillingHoldScopeRefpolicyHoldScope PolicyHoldScopeRef
Must be at least one of either policyHoldScope or billingHoldScope.policyMatchCriteria MoratoriumPolicyMatchCriteriaRef
The criteria used to identify which policies are eligible for the moratorium.type stringoptionaldisplayName string?endTime datetime?
The time the moratorium ends. This can be set after creation and updated to earlier or later.description string?effectiveTimeWaived boolean?
Indicates whether eligible policies issued after the moratorium effectTime are affected.