Oregon Life & Health Study Guide

National material gets two things wrong here, and both are heavily tested: one guaranty number where Oregon writes a schedule of six plus an aggregate that moves, and a flat ten-day free look where Oregon has five products, five answers, and one answer that is not in a statute at all.

The guaranty schedule — six figures in one paragraph

The Oregon Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association sits at ORS 734.750 to 734.890, and the structural fact comes first: every dollar limit is in the obligations section — ORS 734.810, “Duties and powers of association; termination of obligations; limit of obligations” — not in a definition.

• Life death benefit: $300,000, and net cash surrender and net cash withdrawal values: $100,000 — both in ORS 734.810(11)(b)(A).
• Health other than basic hospital, medical and surgical or major medical: $100,000 (ORS 734.810(11)(b)(B)).
• Disability income and long-term care: $300,000 each (ORS 734.810(11)(b)(C), (D)).
• Basic hospital, medical and surgical or major medical: $500,000 (ORS 734.810(11)(b)(E)).
• Annuity: $250,000 in the present value of annuity benefits, including net cash surrender and net cash withdrawal values (ORS 734.810(11)(b)(F)).

The aggregate is a subsection of the same section, not a separate one: $300,000 in the aggregate with respect to any one life, rising to $500,000 where basic hospital, medical and surgical or major medical insurance is involved (ORS 734.810(12)(a)). That makes $500,000 the only figure on the list that lifts the ceiling as well as filling it.

The $300,000 and $100,000 pair does the most work: an item will hand you a policy where the two answers differ — a death benefit inside the $300,000 limit alongside cash value the $100,000 limit cuts down.

Where Oregon files its limits

An item can ask where a limit comes from rather than what it is. Here it is all in the obligations section, ORS 734.810(11)(b). On the property and casualty side Oregon splits it across two sections: the dollar cap in the obligations section at ORS 734.570(1), and the exclusion of first-party claims of an insured whose net worth exceeds $25 million inside the definition of covered claim at ORS 734.510(4)(b). Both associations also bar using the association’s existence or website to induce a purchase (ORS 734.890).

The free-look ladder — and the rung with no statute under it

Ordinary life is the rung to be careful with. No Oregon statute or current rule mandates a free look on an ordinary life policy: ORS 743.159 scopes the required life provisions to ORS 743.162 to 743.243, and no right-to-return section sits inside that run. Ten days is DFR’s form-approval standard, not a mandate, and DFR’s own product-standards checklist cites a rule number that is not in the current administrative rules. OAR 836-051-0015(1) points the same way, treating a ten-day unconditional refund as a condition that relaxes a disclosure duty, which presupposes some policies carry none. Say “ten days, as a filing standard” — never “Oregon requires a 10-day free look.”

The rest of the ladder:

• Annuity: disclosure-triggered. No less than 10 days if the Buyer’s Guide and disclosure document were delivered at or before application (OAR 836-051-0915(4)); no less than 15 days if they arrive with the contract instead (OAR 836-051-0915(3)) — the subsections run in the reverse order to the day counts. It runs concurrently with any free look the contract gives.
• Health: 10 days from delivery, statutory, on every health policy except single premium nonrenewable policies; a returned policy is “void from the beginning” (ORS 743.492).
• Medicare supplement and long-term care: 30 days each, in different sections — Medicare supplement at ORS 743.686 (and OAR 836-052-0160(1)(e)), long-term care at ORS 743.655(6), which also requires the refund within 30 days of the return or denial.
• Replacement: 30 days, an unconditional full refund of all premiums or considerations including policy fees and charges, and the replacing insurer’s duty (OAR 836-080-0029(1)(d)).

Replacement — every clock belongs to an insurer

OAR 836-080-0014 gives the producer duties that are qualitative and event-timed, never counted: present and read the notice regarding replacement “not later than at the time of taking the application,” obtain both signatures, list every policy proposed to be replaced, leave the sales material. That is a sequence, not a day count. The numbers belong to carriers: the existing insurer has five business days to write to the owner and five more to supply requested information — both clocks in OAR 836-080-0034(2), neither of them in the producer’s rule.