Regulation/Legislation

While legislative initiatives so far this year are quite varied, there does appear to be one common thread: Consumer protection.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Susan Voss, president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and Iowa’s insurance commissioner, has raised objections about the treatment the insurance industry is receiving from the members and staff of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association Board of Directors has drafted a resolution to create a committee whose purpose will be to find a replacement for General Manager Jim Oliver.

Four former insurance executives of now-defunct Vanguard Fire and Casualty Company have been indicted on charges of fraudulently obtaining $20 million in reimbursement from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund after the 2004 hurricane season.

The Texas Department of Insurance said that allowing the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association to continue operating would be hazardous to the public and the last resort insurer’s policyholders.

Last year when Congress created the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), it ordered a broad study of insurance regulation in the United States—but it assigned the task of conducting that study to the FIO that it had just created. This creates an ideological conflict of interest.