“The idea for NARAB is now 14 years old,” Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, ranking minority member of the Senate Banking Committee, said on the Senate floor today.

“We've been working on it literally for that long, and I'm hoping that in this legislation today we can get it across the finish line.”

Crapo said that under the NARAB provisions, insurance commissioners of the states “will be able to better catch bad actors who after losing a license in one state more quickly to enter into another state.”

Crapo also said state regulators will serve on the board of NARAB “with the same objectives they have as an insurance commissioner—to protect the public interest by promoting the fair and equitable treatment of insurance consumers.”

The Senate bill does contain a provision demanded by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that will require another vote to sustain NARAB within two years of the time it is up and running.

Both the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers of America (CIAB) and the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America (IIABA) voiced support for the provision.

Charles Symington, IIABA senior vice president of external and government affairs, said while the Senate bill contains the “sunset” provision “the IIABA would like to see changed before the measure is enacted into law, it was critically important to move the bill forward in the legislative process.”

Symington said the NARAB provision “would achieve much needed reciprocity in producer licensing and help policyholders by permitting greater competition among agents and brokers.”

Joel Wood, CIAB senior vice president of government affairs, said the CIAB is “pleased” that the legislation also includes “our long-sought NARAB proposal to create a uniform agent/broker nonresident licensure clearinghouse.”

Wood said the sunset provision is not part of the legislation that has cleared the Financial Services Committee, “and we will strongly push to eliminate the sunset provision.

“The good news, however, is that if a TRIA compromise between the two chambers is reached this year, it is virtually certain that NARAB will be created,” Wood said.