Avoid Insurance Bureaucracy Senators Told

NU Online News Service, July 13, 3:36 p.m. EDT?Congressional efforts to reform the insurance industry should be limited to targeting specific problems rather than creating a new federal bureaucracy, an agent group representative told a Senate panel today.[@@]

That recommendation, made to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, came from Ronald Tubertini, chairman of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America's Government Affairs Committee, testifying in Washington.

Meanwhile, an insurers' trade group, the American Insurance Association, asserted again that Congress should create an optional federal charter for insurers because "the current state-system is clogged with so much red tape, inefficiency and unnecessary rules."

Mr. Tubertini, who heads SouthGroup Insurance and Financial Services in Jackson, Miss., made his comments during a hearing on the impact on the insurance industry of the Financial Services Modernization Act, better known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

Current shortcomings in the state regulatory system, Mr. Tubertini said, include the lengthy approval process for new insurance products, as well as unnecessary duplicative oversight in the licensing and post-licensure auditing process.

He said the Alexandria, Va.-based IIABA, known as the "Big I," believes the best alternative for addressing the current deficiencies in the state-based regulatory system is a pragmatic, middle-ground approach that uses federal legislative tools to foster a more uniform system and to streamline the regulatory oversight process at the state level."

He told the senators that "by using targeted and limited federal legislation to overcome the structural impediments to reform at the state level, we can improve rather than replace the state-based system and, in the process, promote a more efficient and effective regulatory framework."

The most important accomplishment of the GLB Act, Mr. Tubertini said, has been a focus on "functional regulation" such as reform in multi-state agent licensing.

Discussing other effects of GLB, he noted that while there had been industry consolidation, there had generally not been the mega-mergers that were forecast before the law was passed.

Drew Cantor, AIA vice president for federal affairs, said in a statement that while the committee considered GLB's impact, his group is "hopeful that senators are eager to ask what other reforms are needed."

Washington-based AIA believes that as the committee considers financial services regulation, "it will want to look more closely at how the broken state-based system restricts competition and hurts consumers."

Mr. Cantor said AIA will continue to work with Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Ranking Member Paul Sarbanes, D-Md. and others as the committee develops its agenda for hearings that will build upon today's meeting.

Sen. Shelby said during the hearing that later this year he plans to bring insurance regulators before the committee to complete a discussion about the law. The committee, he noted, also plans to hold further hearings concerning the state of the insurance industry in the post-GLB environment.

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Avoid Insurance Bureaucracy Senators Told

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