Entries Tagged as 'Optional Federal Charter'
Seen in a Reuters story about Senate hearings regarding the Optional Federal Charter concept:
"The insurance industry is very pragmatic in their selection of a preferred regulator; they always favor the least regulation."
Comment made by Travis Plunkett, legislative director with the Consumer Federation of America
Having just been through a wave of filings for a new countrywide product, during which we were asked the same questions over and over by the various states…and also experienced conflicting demands, sometimes even within a given state…I wonder why it might be that insurers favor less regulation.
Tags:
Insurance · Optional Federal Charter · Regulation
17 April 2008 · Comments Off
This article at Insurance Journal caught my eye:
The Professional Insurance Agents Association of Ohio (PIA) recently testified before the House Insurance Committee in support of a resolution for Ohio to formally oppose any “new layers of needless federal bureaucracy to insurance regulation.”
Of course, I had to see that comment about an hour after I received conflicting demands from state regulators on a couple of filings I have outstanding. And that’s just two lines for one product in one state. There are fifty other jurisdictions I get to deal with in the U.S. too.
Some days, it’s very easy to wish for a single federal regulatory agency to deal with.
Tags:
Bureaucracy In General · Insurance · Optional Federal Charter · Regulation
30 March 2008 · Comments Off
After the past couple of weeks, that the feds would want to be more actively involved in regulating industry should be no surprise. Seen in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):
The U.S. Treasury Department has chosen sides in the fight over state versus federal insurance regulation, standing squarely in the corner of large insurers who want the option to be regulated at the national level.
An executive summary of the Treasury Department’s blueprint for overhauling regulation of financial firms calls for the creation of an Office of National Insurance to be housed within Treasury. The new regulator would have oversight over insurance firms that chose an optional federal charter.
The support for the federal charter marks the first time the Bush administration has officially weighed in on the long-running debate over insurance regulation. States currently have the authority to oversee insurers, and though efforts have been made to standardize forms and other requirements, a number of differences still exist between states.
Professionally, I’d welcome a single regulatory body to deal with. I’ve spent too effing much of my time recently working on state filings for countrywide rollouts of new specialty commercial lines products. In fact, my calendar this coming week is almost full with time blocked off to respond to frequently conflicting requests from different states’ DOI’s. Give me one regulatory body to deal with, rather than 52, and I could get back to doing real work.
However, as an armchair consumer advocate, I do have some concerns. Consider, for example, some recent “fun” my wife and I have had with health insurance, made possible by a lack of consumer protections in federal regulation.
Sure, the feds do a pretty good job in protecting the public from fiscal insecurity of regulated businesses, but otherwise consumer protection is seemingly a heretical concept among federal regulators.
Tags:
Bureaucracy In General · Insurance · Optional Federal Charter · Regulation
