"It is rare to get something done in Congress," she said, ranking the passage of NRRA with HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and TRIA (the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act)--the other three historic laws passed during the 20-year time period.

NAPSLO hired B&D Consulting in 2005, Ms. Berthoud said, going on to detail the following evolution that included four years of House action--Congressional hearings, then moving through the judiciary committee and up to the House floor where it passed three times, and then several Senate hearings of NAPSLO's legislative principals until becoming the law of the land. NAPSLO and its industry's partners were successful in passing NRRA through Congress four times--three times as a standalone bill in the House, and ultimately by both houses as part of the federal financial services reform legislation that has become the Dodd-Frank law.

In contrast to the speed that Ms. Berthoud observed, for veteran participants in the effort, like NAPSLO Executive Director Richard Bouhan, the process probably seemed like an eternity. Well before B&D joined the team working to rationalize a confusing system of taxation rules for multi-state surplus lines risks, and even before NAPSLO first brought the problem to the attention of federal lawmakers in late 2003, Mr. Bouhan painstakingly tried to explain the nightmare to state regulators, state lawmakers and anyone else who would listen. A crusade that spanned two decades is evidenced by words he wrote in an article published in National Underwriter midway along the way.