NU Online News Service, Sept. 9, 3:11 p.m.EDT

A group of chief risk officers (CROs) from 23 leading NorthAmerican property & casualty and life insurers announced theformation of the North American CRO Council.

The group is a professional association of CROs of leadinginsurers headquartered in the United States, Bermuda andCanada.

Member CROs represent 12 of the 15 largest P&C insurers and11 of the 15 largest life insurers in North America. The Councilsays it seeks to develop and promote leading practices in riskmanagement throughout the insurance industry.

The Council says it has established an active agenda thatincludes:

• Participating in global developments associated with theharmonization of regulatory-capital requirements acrossjurisdictions.
• Providing guidance to North American regulatory bodies oneffective methods for evaluating risk management and solvencymonitoring standards.
• Promoting development and assessment of capital requirementsleveraging company-developed risk models.
• Producing industry-leading research on emerging risks.

Founding members include CROs from: ACE Group, AmericanInternational Group, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, CNAFinancial Corporation, Genworth Financial, Great-West Lifeco Inc.,Lincoln Financial Group, Manulife Financial Corporation, MassMutualFinancial Group, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, New York LifeInsurance Company, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company,Pacific Life Insurance Company, Principal Financial Group,Prudential Financial, Inc., Reinsurance Group of America,Incorporated, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, TheAllstate Corporation, The Guardian Life Insurance Company ofAmerica, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., TheProgressive Corporation, TIAA-CREF, United Services AutomobileAssociation, Unum Group and XL Group plc.