Unity Key To Industry Success On Capitol Hill

New IIABA lobbyist sees coalition-building as critical to advance legislative agenda

Washington

Charles E. Symington Jr. hopes to apply the lessons he learned on Capitol Hill to his new job as senior vice president of government affairs with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America.

As former senior counsel with the House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over insurance, Mr. Symington was right in the middle of the debates over the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act and insurance regulatory reform.

One thing is clear from his Capitol Hill tenure, Mr. Symington told National Underwriter in a recent interview: The only way the insurance industry can move its legislative agenda is to remain unified and develop coalitions.

The insurance industry, he said, faces a challenge on Capitol Hill right from the outset.

“With the public perception of the insurance industry being less than positive right now, it can sometimes make it difficult for the industry to lobby Congress and the administration on issues of importance,” Mr. Symington said.

This, he said, was very evident following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the effort by the insurance industry to work with the federal government to find a solution to the problem of terrorism coverage.

The insurance industry, according to Mr. Symington, went to Congress and the administration with an industry-wide position to create a terrorism reinsurance mechanism modeled on a system in the United Kingdom called Pool Re.

But both Congress and the Bush Administration, he said, decided not to pursue that approach.

This, Mr. Symington said, was a philosophical decision. Congress and the administration believed that the private market should provide insurance.

The federal government could provide a backstop, he said, but neither Congress nor the administration wanted a government-run insurance mechanism.

The insurance industry ultimately agreed to this approach, and the House passed a bill very quickly, but Mr. Symington noted this was still only the first hurdle to getting legislation enacted.

The Senate took more time, he said, and the industry was not able to get over the top until it formed a coalition with policyholders.

Combined with a push from the Bush Administration, Mr. Symington said, the issue finally got traction and a bill was enacted.

This experience, he said, is instructive for the issue of insurance regulatory reform, which he cited as IIABAs top legislative priority.

The insurance industry, Mr. Symington noted, is split down the middle on the issue of optional federal chartering. It is clear, he said, that OFC will not be enacted any time soon.

However, he added, there is a good chance for reform at the state level, and a coalition similar to the one that led to enactment of TRIA is forming around the road map developed by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, and Rep. Richard Baker, R-La.

The road map, Mr. Symington said, is drawing support both from the insurance industry and policyholders represented by the New York-based Risk and Insurance Management Society.

This type of broad-based coalition, he said, is needed to pass this legislation. IIABA, Mr. Symington added, strongly supports the road map and hopes to play a helpful role in moving it forward.

Noting the great diversity within the insurance industry, Mr. Symington said that because the Financial Services Committee focuses on insurance, many of the members and staff understand the differences between producers and companies, large companies and small companies, property-casualty insurers and life insurers, and so on.

But to the members who do not focus on the industry day-to-day, he said, these differences do not come to the fore and the industry may be seen as a monolith.

That is why unity is vital if the industry is to get legislation enacted, according to Mr. Symington.

He said that his new task is to use his experience on the committee staff and the personal relationships he built with agents, companies and consumers to represent the interests of insurance agents to the best of his ability.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 16, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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Unity Key To Industry Success On Capitol Hill

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