The chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurancewrote a sharply worded letter to Federal InsuranceOffice Director Michael McRaith, demanding to know why severaloverdue reports required by the Dodd-Frank Act were still notsubmitted to Congress.

“As director of FIO, you have failed to comply with thestatutory requirements to provide the reports detailedbelow,” wrote Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, citing three reports,including the so-called insurance regulation modernization report,which is the most long-awaited. It was due Jan. 21, 2012.

The FIO reports, when published, would go to the subcommitteeand parent House Financial Services Committee. In the Oct. 7 letterto McRaith, Neugebauer says Congress has not been given any legaljustification of why FIO has not met its report deadlines so farand asked for a written response detailing the reasons — whetherpersonnel, budgetary, political, operational or technical — as towhy the reports are not submitted yet.

“While I have no reason to question the professionalism of thepersonnel at FIO, this pattern of disregard for statutorily imposeddeadlines for reporting to Congress, without any explanation forthe delays, is troubling,” Neugebauer wrote.

Neugebauer's office says he has been having productivemeetings with McRaith on insurance issues so far. The FIO says ithas received the letter.

Drafts of the reports have been circulated for months but, likemany federal work products, are subject to a process atTreasury–and through Treasury to other federal agencies, where theyare vetted, explained, rewritten and reviewed again as insuranceevents or regulatory issues occur and arise–all before they aresent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. A newoffice's first official agenda-setting item would likely go throughthis process in an even more involved and protracted way.

Neugebauer has taken an interest in calling on FIO and McRaithto explain their roles and involvement in issues of insuranceregulation domestically and internationally.

These are the first agenda-setting work products of the firstagency office dedicated to insurance oversight andmonitoring, if not supervision, at the federal level,many acknowledge. People from the National Association of InsuranceCommissioners (NAIC) to members of Congress to internationalregulators, along with trade groups, consumer groups, and industrychiefs are all anticipating the tone and scope of the reports,especially the one that will set forth FIO's domestic agenda indetail, the modernization report.

In mid-July, Neugebauer told McRaith he wanted to be frequentlyupdated and have key people involved in ongoing discussionsregarding international measures that can create new, overarchingcapital adequacy standards or expectations for certain U.S.insurance companies.

In June, the subcommittee pressed McRaith on his work, hisrelationship with the NAIC, and the federal independent insuranceexpert for the Financial Stability Oversight Council, RoyWoodall.

In late March, Neugebauer wrote to McRaith, who also heads theinfluential technical committee of the International Association ofInsurance Supervisors, expressing concern on the development of twomajor IAIS initiatives — ComFrame and standards for systemicallyrisky insurers. Neugebauer's March letter was said to reflect theconcern of many in the U.S. state regulatory and industrycommunities.

Completion of the modernization report, which was expected bysummer into early fall, is likely slowed down due to the governmentshutdown with the huge swathe of furloughed federal employees atTreasury, OMB and other agencies.

The other two overdue reports that Neugebauer asked for are theglobal reinsurance market report, which was due at the end ofSeptember 2012, and a report on the impact of the NonadmittedInsurance and Reinsurance Reform Act of 2010, due Jan. 1, 2013.