Review of The Rhode Island Insurance Intercept Program

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The objective of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of Rhode Island's procedures for identifying and intercepting insurance claim payments from non-custodial parents (NCP) with past due child support.  Rhode Island's insurance intercept program collected $528,583 from 154 of the 364 insurance payments whose claims matched with the State's delinquent child support database from April 1999 to August 2001.  While the remaining 210 matches were still pending at the time of our review, we estimate that the State could collect as much as $720,720.  In total, the State could collect as much as $1,249,303 ($528,583 + $720,720) in child support from its insurance intercept program for the 364 matches.  Our analysis of amounts collected showed:  (i) reduced outstanding child support by 45 percent, (ii) increased financial support to NCP children, and (iii) recovered public assistance paid to custodial parents and their children.  The insurance intercept program also provided the State IV-D agency with current information to locate NCPs, and may increase Federal incentive payments.

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