The House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) is urging theFederal Insurance Office (FIO) to submit several "long overduereports without further delay."

In its oversight plan for the 113th Congress, the HFSCsays it will also conduct "significant oversight over the FinancialStability Oversight Council (FSOC)," monitoring the extent to whichits designation of systemically important financial institutions(SIFIs) may create an expectation among market participants thatthe firms are too big to fail.

The committee also said it will work to ensure that the FIO,housed in Treasury, is focused on developing "expertise oninsurance matters and does not impose unwarranted or excessivedata collection burdens on the insurance sector or onsmall insurers in particular."

The overdue FIO reports, required to be submitted toCongress under the Dodd-Frank Act, include: an annual reportto Congress, which was due Sept. 30, 2011, on anyactions taken to preemt of state laws under aninternational-insurance agreement; a report, due Sept. 30,2012, describing the U.S.- and global-reinsurance markets; a reporton the ability of state regulators to access reinsuranceinformation; a review of "Nonadmitted Reinsurance andReform Act" provisions allowing state regulators to accessreinsurance information for insurers, due Jan. 1, 2013; and –perhaps the most highly anticipated – a report on the modernizationof insurance regulation, due almost 13 full months ago.

The modernization report is supposed to makerecommendations to improve the system of insurance regulation inthe United States. The report was said to be drafted on time andwas caught up in various agency reviews, among other delays.Sources suggest the report might come out this month, after TresurySecretary designee Jacob Lew is confirmed. Publication datessuggested by sources have slid for more than a year. Those close tothe FIO do not expect to see it until the day it is submitted toCongress.

All manner of industry groups and interests, consumer-advocategroups and state regulators have already met with the FIO andweighed in with comments, which were due in mid-December 2011, somany are anxious to see how their input is processed by FIODirector Michael McRaith and his staff. 

However, there is no fine or sanction for delays, and no reasonto hurry the report, other than to assuage anxiety among theinsurance industry. 

McRaith had earlier pledged to be "prolific" in his reports, andit is expected he has been.

The report may or may not include suggestions for newlegislative proposals that would affect the current stateregulatory system for insurance, and the National Association ofInsurance Commissioners is girding for any such proposals. TheNAIC's new CEO, Ben Nelson, former Nebraska senator, lastmonth acknowledged in a quick chat after assuming his new post thathis fear is not a discussion of insurance in the modernizationreport, but some sort of increased FIO role to be gained throughlegislation. At the outset, Nelson noted that the federalgovernment/FIO is not a regulator.