Did NAIC Unit Lose Data? It's A Mystery

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service Dec. 17, 11:43 a.m. EST?Did the Securities Valuation Office leave a briefcase full of key rating documents in a cab, or throw them out in the garbage? Key players were mum yesterday.[@@]

Said to be gone missing was material related to the shares of the Insurance Services Office in Jersey City, N.J. The SVO, a New York-based unit of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, rates the contents of carriers' portfolios.

News of the missing papers was revealed by the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies Wednesday in an announcement complaining that SVO had "unexplainably" plunged the value of ISO class B shares from $71 at year-end 2003 to about $12 this year. "NAIC Securities Valuation Office Seems to Have Dropped Ball on ISO Stock," NAMIC headlined.

The ISO shares are in many insurers' portfolios, NAMIC said, and they were pained by the change.

According to NAMIC, Kenneth S. Geraghty, the chief financial officer of Insurance Services Office in Jersey City, N.J. said last month that SVO reached the $71 figure analyzing the average price of shares repurchased from shareholders.

NAMIC said Mr. Geraghty commented that the lower valuation of $12 was arrived at from a tangible book-value approach, "and came after the SVO had lost paperwork."

A spokesman for ISO yesterday, when asked about the missing papers, would say only: "The issue has been successfully resolved and interested parties have been notified. The issue has been resolved."

The spokesman noted that ISO does not publicly disclose its financials.

The Indianapolis-based NAMIC withdrew its SVO critique shortly after it was released. Spokesman Rick Nelson said yesterday, in answer to questions, "I don't know beyond that; my information was outdated." Was paperwork lost? "I cannot confirm that today."

Today, Roger Schmelzer, NAMIC senior vice president for state and regulatory affairs, when asked for details of the lost papers said: "We don't know. We just were reporting what we were told. That's something we were told and we passed along."

At the SVO, Rick Newman, senior advisor of the credit and regulatory unit, seemed mystified about the material in the NAMIC report. "I don't know. I'm trying to find out about it myself," he said. Later he he sent an e-mail stating that "the SVO does not believe that anyone made a comment regarding lost documents.."

Mr. Newman suggested that SVO had perhaps made "a reference to the fact that the SVO lost all of its paper files [during the World Trade Center] attack on our facilities on Sept. 11, 2001, and not all of these files were replaced. Whatever information was lost, however, would've been immaterial given that any SVO analytical work product would be based on new, timely infomation provided by the insurer to the SVO."

He added that, "We do not feel it would be appropriate to get into details on this transaction as it was a private, confidential transaction between the NAIC and [ISO], and making statements about the security in public could have unintended consequences."

As general background, SVO said the NAMIC statement "is not accurate. No doubt this is a result of a lack of the representative's understanding of how pricing and credit assessment work is conducted."

"The SVO analysis for 2003 was determined by an analyst using a method other than book value pursuant to the discretionary language. For 2004, the portfolio was reassigned and a new analyst took over responsibility for pricing the security, "Mr. Newman wrote.

That analyst considered that book value was an appropriate method and assigned a price using that method.

ISO, he said, appealed the decision and provided information in support of its view and, "The new analyst collected the information and presented the issue and information to the senior credit committee as required by the appeal process.

According to Mr. Newman, the SVO credit committee "considered the unique situation presented, asked for and obtained additional information from [ISO] and, subsequently, determined a pricing method it deemed to be appropriate under all of the circumstances, and assigned a price to the security in question in accordance with these instructions."

This story was updated 2:59 p.m. EST

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Did NAIC Unit Lose Data? It's A Mystery

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