The following standards are applicable to all Medicare supplement contracts advertised, solicited, or issued for delivery on or after January 1, 2001, and with an effective date prior to June 1, 2010. A contract shall not be advertised, solicited, or issued for delivery as a Medicare supplement contract unless it complies with these benefit standards. (a) The following general standards apply to Medicare supplement contracts and are in addition to all other requirements of this article: (1) A Medicare supplement contract shall not exclude or limit benefits for losses incurred more than six months from the effective date of coverage because it involved a preexisting condition. The contract shall not define a preexisting condition more restrictively than a condition for which medical advice was given or treatment was recommended by or received from a physician within six months before the effective date of coverage. (2) A Medicare supplement contract shall not indemnify against losses resulting from sickness on a different basis than losses resulting from accidents. (3) A Medicare supplement contract shall provide that benefits designed to cover cost-sharing amounts under Medicare will be changed automatically to coincide with any changes in the applicable Medicare deductible, copayment, or coinsurance amounts. Prepaid or periodic charges may be modified to correspond with those changes. (4) A Medicare supplement contract shall not provide for termination of coverage of a spouse solely because of the occurrence of an event specified for termination of coverage of the covered person, other than the nonpayment of the prepaid or periodic charge. (5) Each Medicare supplement contract shall be guaranteed renewable. (A) The issuer shall not cancel or nonrenew the contract solely on the ground of health status of the individual. (B) The issuer shall not cancel or nonrenew the contract for any reason other than nonpayment of the prepaid or periodic charge or misrepresentation of the risk by the applicant that is shown by the plan to be material to the acceptance for coverage. The contestability period for Medicare supplement contracts shall be two years. (C) If a group Medicare supplement contract is terminated by the subscriber and is not replaced as provided under subparagraph (E), the issuer shall offer enrollees an individual Medicare supplement contract that, at the option of the enrollee, either provides for continuation of the benefits contained in the terminated contract or provides for benefits that otherwise meet the requirements of this subsection. (D) If an individual is an enrollee in a group Medicare supplement contract and the individual membership in the group is terminated, the issuer shall either offer the enrollee the conversion opportunity described in subparagraph (C) or, at the option of the subscriber, shall offer the enrollee continuation of coverage under the group contract. (E) If a group Medicare supplement contract is replaced by another group Medicare supplement contract purchased by the same subscriber, the issuer of the replacement contract shall offer coverage to all persons covered under the old group contract on its date of termination. Coverage under the new contract shall not result in any exclusion for preexisting conditions that would have been covered under the group contract being replaced. (F) If a Medicare supplement contract eliminates an outpatient prescription drug benefit as a result of requirements imposed by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-173), the contract as modified as a result of that act shall be deemed to satisfy the guaranteed renewal requirements of this paragraph. (6) Termination of a Medicare supplement contract shall be without prejudice to any continuous loss that commenced while the contract was in force, but the extension of benefits beyond the period during which the contract was in force may be predicated upon the
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