375.012.  Definitions. — 1.  Sections 375.012 to 375.146 may be cited as the "Insurance Producers Act".

  2.  As used in sections 375.012 to 375.158, the following words mean:

  (1)  "Business entity", a corporation, association, partnership, limited liability company, limited liability partnership or other legal entity;

  (2)  "Director", the director of the department of commerce and insurance;

  (3)  "Home state", the District of Columbia and any state or territory of the United States in which the insurance producer maintains his or her principal place of residence or principal place of business and is licensed to act as an insurance producer;

  (4)  "Insurance", any line of authority, including life, accident and health or sickness, property, casualty, variable life and variable annuity products, personal, credit and any other line of authority permitted by state law or regulation;

  (5)  "Insurance company" or "insurer", any person, reciprocal exchange, interinsurer, Lloyds insurer, fraternal benefit society, and any other legal entity engaged in the business of insurance, including health services corporations, health maintenance organizations, prepaid limited health care service plans, dental, optometric and other similar health service plans, unless their exclusion from this definition can be clearly ascertained from the context of the particular statutory section under consideration.  Insurer shall also include all companies organized, incorporated or doing business pursuant to the provisions of chapters 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381 and 384.  Trusteed pension plans and profit-sharing plans qualified pursuant to the United States Internal Revenue Code as now or hereafter amended shall not be considered to be insurance companies or insurers within the definition of this section;

  (6)  "Insurance producer" or "producer", a person required to be licensed pursuant to the laws of this state to sell, solicit or negotiate insurance;

  (7)  "License", a document issued by the director authorizing a person to act as an insurance producer for the lines of authority specified in the document.  The license itself shall not create any authority, actual, apparent or inherent, in the holder to represent or commit an insurance company;

  (8)  "Limited line credit insurance", 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 director determines should be designated a form of limited line credit insurance;

  (9)  "Limited line credit insurance producer", a person who sells, solicits or negotiates one or more forms of limited line credit insurance coverage through a master, corporate, group or individual policy;

  (10)  "Limited lines insurance", insurance involved in credit transactions, insurance contracts issued primarily for covering the risk of travel or any other line of insurance that the director deems necessary to recognize for the purposes of complying with subsection 5 of section 375.017;

  (11)  "Limited lines producer", a person authorized by the director to sell, solicit or negotiate limited lines insurance;

  (12)  "Negotiate", 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 person engaged in that act either sells insurance or obtains insurance from insurers for purchasers;

  (13)  "Person", an individual or any business entity;

  (14)  "Personal lines insurance", property and casualty insurance coverage sold to individuals and families for primarily noncommercial purposes;

  (15)  "Sell", to exchange a contract of insurance by any means, for money or its equivalent, on behalf of an insurance company;

  (16)  "Solicit", attempting to sell insurance or asking or urging a person to apply for a particular kind of insurance from a particular company;

  (17)  "Terminate", the cancellation of the relationship between an insurance producer and the insurer or the termination of the authority of the producer to transact the business of insurance;

  (18)  "Uniform business entity application", the current version of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners uniform business entity application for resident and nonresident business entities seeking an insurance producer license;

  (19)  "Uniform application", the current version of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners uniform application for resident and nonresident producer licensing.

  3.  All statutory references to insurance agent or insurance broker shall mean insurance producer, as that term is defined pursuant to subsection 1 of this section.