The conversion of the Pennsylvania Insurance Department’s database to a birth-month license renewal system will occur March 1, meaning some services will be unavailable for a day.

The database change will automatically shift agents whose licenses are set to on or after April 17 to the new birth-month renewal system.

Agents whose licenses were up for renewal prior to April 17 already have been converted to the birth month renewal, according to a recent Pennsylvania Insurance Department notice from Jack Yanosky, director of the bureau of licensing and enforcement. The department started shifting renewals late last year.

In conjunction with the changes, some of Pennsylvania’s electronic licensing services, provided through its vendor, Sircon, will be unavailable from 4:30 a.m. March 1 to 7 a.m. March 2. They include online access to appointments and terminations, resident and non-resident license applications and renewals, education letters, requests for letters of certification, address and email updates and status inquiries, according to a separate notice issued Feb. 19 by Yanosky.

“All services will be unavailable during the database conversion so we strongly suggest anyone needing to process a license renewal, producer appointments or terminations or other e-transaction by March 1, 2010 to process that transaction before that date,” Yanosky said in a separate note to some of those who may be affected.

The changes in licensing, first reported by IFAwebnews.com and Insurance & Financial Advisor in November 2009, are designed to align Pennsylvania with the national uniformity standards issued by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, of which Pennsylvania is part. The birth-date license renewal system will replace what had been an anniversary system, wherein agents renewed their license on the two-year anniversary of the license’s first issuance.

Now, all renewals will occur on the birth month of the agent, making it easier for agents to track when they need to renew in Pennsylvania, as well as in other states who also are using the birth-month system.