An NCOIL panel is currently taking a year to study the National Association of Insurance Commissioners plan calling for state and federal funds to support insurers in the event of a mega-catastrophe.

Mr. Geller indicated that was unlikely to resolve anything because he said “at the end of this year they [the NAIC] will have a new draft.”

The NAIC has yet to endorse any plan with its action so far limited to urging Congress to consider the entire issue of mega-catastrophe funding.

Louisiana State Rep. Shirley Bowler, R-River Ridge, said that NCOIL has taken stands on a number of catastrophe issues such as allowing insurers to set tax-free reserves, but there is not enough consensus or understanding of what the public-private fund entails at this point.

She also feels that any further encroachment of the federal government into insurance such as creation of a catastrophe fund would pose a threat to state regulation.

As NCOIL president three years ago, Sen. Geller was involved in a similar legislative process with NAIC in jointly developing a market conduct model act. But he sees a great reluctance on the part of lawmakers to move now on the catastrophe fund question.

He urged the group to at least acknowledge it will do nothing. “If we reach the decision that we are not going to do anything on natural disaster, let's take a vote that we are not going to do anything,” he said.

Sen. Geller said that some lawmakers viewed any such fund as a bailout of Florida residents who want to live near the coast.

“There are also some people in this organization who are unwilling to do anything that would upset the insurance industry. And when you combine the two factors, it is very difficult to gain action,” he said.

Sen. Geller also noted that since the NAIC has yet to formally endorse the plan, NCOIL's refusal so far is almost “meaningless.”

As a key insurance legislator in the Florida Legislature, Sen. Geller was instrumental in negotiating the package earlier this year that expanded the capacity of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and rolled back the rates of the state's property insurance residual market insurer.

The insurance industry has decried the new Florida measures for the impact they will have on its ability to respond to future mega-catastrophes.

Rep. Bowler agreed, calling the Florida program the “pinnacle of failure” and arguing that it postpones current risk costs to future generations in the form of debt.