The document identified 25 issues where the House and Senate bills diverged. Of these, the document specified, the House was conceding to the Senate on 21 of them, asking the Senate to agree to the House position on two provisions, and proposed compromise language on three others.

The House proposal, however, would salvage a vestige of one of the more innovative provisions of its more approach.

The House bill proposed creating different levels of government support based on the potential difficulty insurers would have in reinsuring their losses. The latest House proposal suggests retaining only one of these so-called "silos"==for workers' compensation coverage. The House proposal would require that insurers retain the first 16 percent of claims for workers' comp before government aid would kick in.

Otherwise, Senate language calling for a 17.5 percent retention rate on covered lines in the first year and 20 percent in the second year would be included in a final bill.

The coverage areas removed in the Senate bill that are currently covered under TRIA include commercial auto, professional liability, surety, burglary and theft, and farmowners' multi-peril. The House conceded deletion of those coverages from the program.

However, the document did ask the Senate to retain the House's language regarding creation of a study commission to recommend ways of phasing out the federal reinsurance backstop without the need for an abrupt sunset when the new bill would expire on Dec. 31, 2007.

The House document proposed creation of a terrorism commission that would be required to report to Congress within a year, "with specific recommendations for an alternative to TRIA that would significantly reduce any federal exposure and participation in terrorism insurance over time."

Moreover, the House document proposed retention of a provision in its bill designed to create some uniformity in insurance regulation. That provision would allow sophisticated businesses the ability to access the surplus lines market directly for terrorism coverage, while limiting restrictions for access to the surplus lines market for less sophisticated businesses to the policyholder's home state.

"The sense of Congress would also be included regarding the need for insurers to have the option of filing terrorism policies through a single electronic review system," according to the House document==called an "offer," or "proffer" in congressional lingo.

"These reforms are supported by all parts of the marketplace (policyholders, agents, brokers and insurers) and are no-brainers for facilitating the private sector terrorism market," the document said.

Among the concessions, House negotiators agreed to drop group life as a covered line. That omission constituted a huge victory for the White House, which since June has made it clear it opposed adding group life to TRIA, saying it would only support an extension of TRIA if it was narrower than the current version and got the government out of the terrorism insurance business completely at the end of its two-year life.

One of the industry lobbyists involved in the House preparation for the meeting agreed that the House proposal to the Senate constituted abject surrender to the much narrower Senate bill. "But the document has to be looked at in the context of the stubborn unwillingness of the Senate to entertain regular order in a formal conference setting to work out the differences between the two bills," the lobbyist said.

"In this document, Chairman Oxley is willing to surrender much of the distinctions in the House bill in order to ensure policyholders are protected as of Jan. 1, 2006," the lobbyist said. "This shows the magnanimous desire of Chairman Oxley to get this bill to the finish line."

Hopes that TRIA could be extended rose in midday yesterday, when Senate Majority Leader William Frist, R-Tenn., reversed his position from late last week, saying that time in fact remains for the House and Senate to negotiate an extension before Congress leaves for the year.

"I intend to finish TRIA before we leave" for the holidays," Sen. Frist said. Senators would "work through" more than two dozen differences between the bill they passed and the House version even if there are no formal House-Senate negotiations, he added.

Sen. Frist acknowledged the Senate had not followed the usual procedure of naming senators to negotiate with the House. "There are other ways to work out the differences, and we are using those other ways," he told reporters.