Since California’s Assembly Bill 1048 took effect on January 1, 2025, insurance companies and managed care organizations doing business in the state have had to update their processes for dental rate filings. Now, more than one year later, insurance companies are settling into a new normal for rate filings, one that places greater attention on rate adequacy and supporting documentation.
Before these changes, reporting requirements were less standardized, which made comparisons of medical loss ratios and rate adequacy more difficult. Now, insurance companies doing business in California are required to file annually, thereby standardizing data for comparison, and creating a framework for market oversight. Insurers regulated by either the California Department of Insurance or the California Department of Managed Health Care must comply with the new rules.
Here is a helpful overview of the updated requirements and what insurers should keep in mind when preparing filings.
What has changed?
AB1048 outlined various requirements for dental rate filings in California. Here are the key aspects of the changes:
Annual rate filings are required – Insurers must submit dental rate filings every year to the CDI or DMHC, regardless of whether new rates are proposed.
Separate dental rate filings required for each market –Insurance companies must submit a separate rate filing for each market (individual, small group, and large group).
Independent actuarial certification is mandatory – Certification by qualified third-party actuaries is required. This task can no longer be performed by in-house actuarial teams.
Enhanced review of rate adequacy – The bill established no official minimum loss ratio, so insurers will need to be ready to submit justification for all loss ratios.
What do these new California dental rate filing changes mean for insurers?
These new rules establish annual reporting and certification requirements for dental insurers in California. Here are some important steps to incorporate into your annual rate filing process:
Complete the Dental Rate Review Workbook annually
Companies are now required to submit California’s Dental Rate Review Workbook (AB 1048 Dental Workbook) as part of their filing. It’s a comprehensive spreadsheet that includes pricing details for various products, data on cost and utilization trends, rating factors and supporting methodology, and more.
Partner with experienced actuaries
Third-party independent actuarial certification requirements mean that dental insurance companies operating in the state of California must work with independent actuaries for certification. Actuarial consulting partners can assist with accurate rate development or the calculation of proposed rates. Look for actuaries who have already filed dental rates in California on behalf of clients and who have experience completing the Dental Rate Review Workbook.
Leverage data collection for insights
One ancillary benefit of these changes is that insurance companies can now use the resulting data for internal business insights that can support profitability goals and marketing plans. Company leadership can share goals with their actuarial services partners, who can concurrently review collected data with the company’s internal objectives in mind.
Remember to submit a separate annual filing for all plans
Dental insurance is now coming into alignment with health plans, which are required to submit a separate rate filing for each market (individual, small group, and large group). If a company offers individual, small group, and large group plans, the company must submit an annual filing for each. An experienced actuarial support services partner can help lighten the load.
Rate filings are required for rate increases
Dental insurers may request a rate increase when submitting their annual filing. However, if an insurer submits an annual filing without requesting a rate increase, and then wants to increase rates later in the year, they must submit an additional rate filing (with the same requirements as an annual filing) no later than 120 days before implementing the change.
California’s updated dental rate filing requirements reflect the state’s focus on transparency and give regulators oversight over dental premiums. Keeping these requirements in mind while developing rates can help companies manage filings more efficiently and help support timely, complete, and well-documented filings. To meet these new standards, dental insurers will need reliable partners for the independent actuarial certification and review process.
Contact Perr&Knight today to discover how our team of experienced actuaries can help you navigate the changes related to AB 1048.
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Introduction: The Coming Transformation of Rate Filings
For too long, the rate filing process has depended on people rather than systems. Every insurer has lived with some version of the same problem: a small group of analysts and actuaries who “know how it’s done,” spreadsheets scattered across shared drives, and institutional knowledge that travels with employees when they change roles or leave. The result is fragility with single-point dependency risk and a chronic lack of a single source of truth for filings data, documentation, and workflow history.
Even with the introduction of insurance state filings software like SERFF in the early 2000s and its upcoming “modernization,” this issue remains unresolved. SERFF’s mandate is deliberately narrow, designed to facilitate transmission of filings between insurers and regulators, not to manage the broader, interconnected product development and filing lifecycle. Because it primarily serves state departments of insurance, it offers little help with the internal and cross-functional workflows that dominate the filing process. And even if its new version proves more efficient for filers, it will inevitably fall behind in the fast-moving technology cycle we now inhabit.
Complicating matters, filings touch several major functions within an insurance organization. Actuarial, compliance, marketing, claims, and IT all need to know what is being filed, what the filing introduces or changes, and when those changes will take effect. During the filing process, multiple areas may also need to support regulatory activities, including preparing actuarial exhibits, drafting form changes, and responding to regulatory inquiries. Without integrated systems, these interactions are often disjointed, relying on ad hoc communication and manual tracking.
The real transformation will come from integrated, intelligent systems that combine automation, analytics, and AI. These technologies will not only eliminate manual tasks like uploading, indexing, and data entry, they will also centralize knowledge, coordinate stakeholders, assist with compliance, and preserve a continuous institutional memory from concept to approval. As insurers evolve, filings will no longer depend on a key employee’s knowledge or disconnected spreadsheets. Instead, they will flow through unified insurance state filings software platforms that are fast, highly automated, and resilient—where expertise is amplified by technology and data resides uniformly in one system rather than scattered across disparate drives (or filing cabinets).
At Perr&Knight, this vision is reflected in the development of PK1Cloud, a unified digital platform built to address precisely these challenges and lead the industry toward a smarter, more connected future.
The Inefficiency of Today’s Filing Process
Despite decades of incremental improvements, the filings process remains one of the most labor-intensive, fragmented, and risk-prone activities within the insurance industry. For many organizations, more than half of the time and effort spent on a filing has nothing to do with actuarial analysis or regulatory interpretation; it is consumed by manual mechanics such as uploading documents, indexing exhibits, entering data into SERFF, tracking correspondence, and maintaining version control. Each of these tasks creates opportunities for delay, inconsistency, or error.
Because most companies rely on a patchwork of shared folders, email threads, and spreadsheets, even simple filings can require extensive coordination to confirm which version of a document is current or whether an exhibit was approved.
This fragmentation extends beyond the filings team itself. Product managers, actuaries, compliance staff, marketing, claims, and IT all depend on accurate, timely information about what’s being filed and when. In addition, critical components of the filing process—such as reviewing state insurance codes and comparing proposed filings to competitor submissions—are still largely manual exercises. These activities are essential for compliance and competitive positioning, yet they consume significant time and are highly susceptible to human oversight. With structured data and AI, both can be automated or accelerated, allowing teams to focus on interpretation rather than repetition.
The inefficiency is compounded during regulator interaction. Preparing responses to inquiries or objections frequently requires recreating or re-collecting the same data, exhibits, and rationale because the supporting material isn’t centralized. This often includes the same time-consuming steps of verifying code requirements or researching competitor filings to justify a company’s position. Institutional knowledge about past filings, including why decisions were made, what worked, and what didn’t, often disappears when employees move on, i.e., traveling knowledge risk.
Today’s process is workable, but it’s fragile. It relies on human continuity rather than system continuity, and on institutional memory rather than data intelligence. Until that balance shifts, insurers will remain constrained by legacy workflows that limit speed, accuracy, and adaptability.
From Automation to Integration: The Next Leap
Technology, including AI, will dramatically reduce the time and effort required to create, submit, and support rate, rule, and form filings. Much of today’s filing workload can be fully automated through integrated systems and insurance state filings software.
What once required days of effort will be completed in hours, freeing actuaries, product experts, and compliance professionals to focus on higher-value work such as pricing strategies and product innovation. Intelligent systems can generate exhibits, align documentation, and produce outputs in the exact structure required by regulators, improving accuracy and consistency while reducing rework.
Fully integrated filing environments take this a step further by connecting every stage of the process—preparation, review, submission, and regulatory response—within a single system. The process becomes visible, traceable, and consistent, transforming what has historically been a fragmented, manual function into one that operates with manufacturing-like discipline and data-driven accountability.
From Silos to Systems: Coordinating Stakeholders
Every filing touches multiple teams, and each has a distinct interest in what’s being filed and when. Marketing teams need to know what is being filed and when it will go live so they can prepare producer communications and policyholder notices. Claims needs visibility into coverage changes that could affect claim-handling procedures. The IT department must know which rate tables, rules, and forms are being revised so that the rating and issuance systems can be properly programmed and tested.
In the current environment, this coordination often depends on meetings, emails, and personal follow-up, which can be a slow and error-prone process. Modern, integrated filing systems, by contrast, allow for automated notifications, integrated calendars, and dependency tracking. Each department can see precisely what stage the filing is in, what it changes, and when implementation is expected. This ensures synchronization across the organization, reduces operational risk, and shortens the cycle from regulatory approval to market launch.
By connecting stakeholders through shared data and automated communication, the organization gains operational alignment where everyone is working from the same playbook, at the same pace, toward the same deadlines.
Archival and Institutional Memory
A modern state filings system doesn’t just manage filings; it remembers them. Unlike SERFF’s static, PDF-based recordkeeping, an integrated insurance state filings software platform can archive the entire workflow: correspondence, analyses, internal notes, version histories, decision rationales, and even bureau adoptions. This is far more valuable than a simple record of what was filed. It is a dynamic record of how it was done.
Such a system creates true institutional memory, enabling teams to retrieve not just the final product but the reasoning behind it. Future filings can draw upon this archive to anticipate regulatory questions, reuse templates, and ensure consistency across states and product lines. It transforms recordkeeping into knowledge management.
Building Resilience: Eliminating Single-Point Dependency
Modern filings platforms also strengthen organizational resilience. By systematizing the process, they remove single-point dependency risk: the exposure that arises when institutional knowledge resides in a single individual or small team. Insurance state filings software replaces this vulnerability with a single source of truth that is always accessible, always current, and always auditable.
The benefits extend beyond risk mitigation. When data, exhibits, and correspondence are centrally stored and version-controlled, employees can transition between roles without disrupting operations. Knowledge no longer travels with individuals; it stays with the organization. This continuity enhances both efficiency and governance, ensuring that expertise compounds over time.
The Human Factor: Evolving Roles
As automation handles the mechanics, the human role in filings will shift toward interpretation, judgment, and oversight. Actuaries will focus less on producing exhibits and more on validating assumptions and communicating analytical insights. Compliance experts will spend less time chasing documents and more time shaping strategy. Product teams will gain more bandwidth for innovation because their filing support will be faster and more reliable.
In this model, technology doesn’t replace expertise; it amplifies it. The professionals who understand the regulatory and actuarial nuances will remain indispensable, but they will operate in an environment that enables their insights to scale.
Conclusion: The Reimagined Filing Ecosystem
The next decade will redefine how rate filings are done. The combination of automation, integration, and AI will transform the process from a collection of disconnected manual tasks into a unified, intelligent workflow. Insurers that embrace this transformation will see faster cycle times, fewer errors, greater compliance, and ultimately a sustainable competitive advantage.
For regulators, modern insurer compliance systems will yield a clearer, more data-driven view of the filings they review, enabling faster approvals and more consistent oversight. For insurers, it will mean a world where filings are not just faster—they’re smarter. Compliance will be embedded, not appended, and systems (not solely people) will safeguard important knowledge.
At Perr&Knight, this vision is already coming to life through PK1Cloud, our unified platform designed to simplify complexity across the entire product and filing lifecycle. PK1Cloud centralizes data, automates key workflows, communicates key milestones to all stakeholders, and integrates AI-driven analytics to enhance accuracy, speed, and compliance. It also connects with trusted third-party data sources for insurance code validation and competitor rate and form filings, enabling real-time benchmarking and compliance verification.
The filings process has long been viewed as a necessary administrative burden. While regulation will always remain a fundamental part of the insurance landscape, the burden it imposes can be reduced. With solutions like PK1Cloud, that reduction is not theoretical—it’s already underway. Intelligent, integrated systems are transforming filings from a back-office necessity into an efficient capability that strengthens compliance, accelerates innovation, and connects insurers and regulators in a continuous cycle of improvement.
Contact us today to learn more about how Perr&Knight’s proprietary insurance state filings software, PK1Cloud, can help your organization get a head start on the future of filings.
