Washington Bureau - NU Online News Service
The decision by White House officials and congressional leaders to keep group life insurance out of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act was a "terrible mistake," a former state regulator said Monday.
"A catastrophic attack would put significant pressure on the [group life] industry," Gregory Serio said here during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, Falls Church, Va.
Serio, who is now a managing director at Park Strategies L.L.C., New York, a lobbying firm, served as New York insurance superintendent from 2001 until January 2005. He took over as superintendent when his predecessor, Neil Levin, left to become executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Levin died as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
Another panelist, Mark Grier, vice chairman for financial management at Prudential Financial Inc., Newark, N.J., said insurance company managers are worried about the group life sector.
"There is a great deal of concern about the concentration of risk" in that product line, Grier said.
Congress extended TRIA for 2 years in December 2005.
Many members of Congress wanted to add group life insurers to the TRIA program, but Bush administration officials and some congressional leaders succeeded in an effort to exclude group life.
Critics of the idea of adding group life to TRIA argued that the group life market seems to have been functioning well since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite lack of TRIA protection.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
