Ms. Vaughan said the NAIC will add several staff positions to the current complement of 16 already in Washington. The staff of 377 in Kansas City will be retained as will the New York staff of 48.

Ms. Vaughan said the NAIC first approached her about the CEO post in early December and negotiations were completed yesterday the morning.

During the press conference, NAIC officials said Ms. Vaughan's compensation would include salary, a cost of living increase and moving costs to Washington. The actual salary was not given. Her predecessor, Ms. Weatherford, was paid $370,000 a year.

Ms. Vaughan said in taking her new job she resigned positions on boards of directors of Principal Financial, Des Moines, Iowa, and the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association, Washington.

Ms. Vaughan was asked about a recent General Accounting Office report suggesting that the need for a federal insurance regulatory entity should be examined along with the possibility of creating an optional federal insurance charter.

Ms. Vaughan responded that concerning OFC, “I agree that they could consider it. They have in the past.”

When asked if it is feasible to split life insurance with an optional federal charter, she responded, “I'm not clear how that would work,” noting that a lot of ideas are currently being explored.

Explaining her position on state-federal insurance oversight, Ms. Vaughan referred to her comments in a May 2008 National Underwriter editorial where she described what she believes are the responsibilities of an insurance commissioner: “The first and primary responsibility” is consumers and dealing with state legislatures on local problems; then, activity on the national level; and finally, international issues.

But her editorial also noted that the “U.S. insurance regulatory system is structurally unable to speak and act with one voice, try as it may. This problem is exacerbated by the turnover in leadership at the NAIC, with a new president and possibly a new agenda every year.”

The Treasury Department's Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure that was released, she wrote, aims to address issues including participating in an international market and it deserves Congress' consideration.

Under such a proposal, she continued in her editorial, state regulators could continue to offer their expertise and there would be a single office representing U.S. interests internationally.

She said she could not address the issue of how to energize the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission, nor had she considered who would be its new executive director.

Ms. Vaughan initiated and helped develop and advance the Compact Commission which resulted in the creation of the IIPRC.