The National Association of Insurance Commissioners should consider giving large states more voting power, Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler contends.
Mr. Kreidler–speaking here during the closing session of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America's annual meeting–said he was in favor of a proportional voting system for more populous states.
“You can't have the Northern Marianas Islands with the same vote as the 19 million population of New York. It isn't reasonable,” he said.
The NAIC should shift to make the organization “much more responsive to large premium states,” he said, warning that without such a shift, the NAIC cannot remain a viable regulatory group and avoid efforts to shift control to a federal regulator.
The proportional voting issue, according to Mr. Kreidler, could come up when the NAIC holds its planned retreat in February. That meeting, he said, would present “a great opportunity for debate.”
Mr. Kreidler added that in addition to a need for proportional representation, the NAIC must “rise to the challenge” and do more to streamline the regulatory process for licensing agents, while speeding up insurance product approvals to get them to market faster.
He believes the NAIC is capable of balancing its job of providing protection for consumers while eliminating impediments in the insurance marketplace.
In his state, Mr. Kreidler said the insurance department processes rate and form filings in less than 30 days. When insurers are slow with their paperwork in the course of filing a request, his staff calls to find out if there is a problem and if they can be of help.
Regulators, he said, have to make sure that the same effort to speed processing is the case in all states.
Discussing a question about how elected and appointed insurance commissioners perform, Mr. Kreidler–an elected Democrat–said some elected officials go after insurers to score political points, but he sees drawbacks with appointed commissioners as well.
Appointees may be too focused on “their own backyard” and have a political agenda set by their governor, he said, while also citing the problem of rapid turnover among appointed commissioners, who average 24 months on the job.
As a result of this month's elections, Mr. Kreidler said he would guess that as much as one-third of the membership of the NAIC will undergo a change.
“You can't have the Northern Marianas Islands with the same vote as the 19 million population of New York. It isn't reasonable.”
Mike Kreidler,
Insurance Commissioner
Washington State
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.
