Long-Term Members Missing At NAIC Confab

By Jim Connolly

NU Online News Service, Jan. 26, 11:15 a.m. EST?The annual commissioners' gathering currently taking place in Phoenix, Ariz., is absent a number of commissioners that have been core participants in the activities of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for years.[@@]

This year's meeting is tackling issues including brokers' compensation and disclosure, the interstate compact, company and producer licensing, and responding to the potential re-introduction of the State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency draft law in Congress.

The learning and strategy session that takes place at the start of each year will benefit from new faces and new ideas, said Diane Koken, NAIC president and Pennsylvania insurance commissioner. Ms. Koken is a long-term insurance commissioner who began her tenure in August 1997.

But several long-serving regulators will be absent from the annual session. Among the veteran commissioners that recently left their posts are Sally McCarty, former Indiana insurance commissioner; Mike Pickens, former Arkansas insurance commissioner and former NAIC president; Greg Serio, former New York superintendent; Merwin Stewart, former Utah commissioner; and Terri Vaughan, former Iowa insurance commissioner.

Also missing is two-term Oklahoma Commissioner Carroll Fisher, who resigned in September before the state Senate was due to commence his impeachment trial on corruption charges.

Additionally, Texas Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor has announced that he will not seek reappointment when his term ends in May 2005.

The departures come at a time when state insurance regulation is facing criticism and a call among some for more federal oversight. But, Ms. Koken asserted that the turnover has more to do with opportunities that have come up for commissioners as well as the demands of a "rewarding but challenging" job.

Ms. Koken said that the session on broker compensation arrangements and disclosures would be a lengthy one.

The NAIC executive task force on broker activities that is working on the issue will look to the commissioners for guidance on whether to continue examining the issue and further revise the Producer Licensing Model Act with additional amendments to those adopted by the NAIC on December 6, 2004.

The additional proposed amendments have drawn protests from agents, brokers and insurers groups as burdensome, vague and overly broad.

Ms. Koken declined to say whether the NAIC would be part of settlement discussions that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is currently holding with Marsh & McLennan Cos., New York. His office has sued the firm for bid-rigging and price-fixing on commercial insurance policies.

However, the New York Insurance Department, which has investigated MMC with Mr. Spitzer's agency, will be a party to any settlement, said Mike Barry, a spokesman for the department.

Other sessions at the commissioners' meeting will include a review of catastrophic risks and new modeling that can be applied to those risks, a discussion of an extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, and a review by consumer representatives of how the NAIC Web site can be made more consumer-friendly, Ms Koken added.

She said that the depth of talent in the current commissioner pool will offset any talent lost by commissioner departures.

Ms. Koken noted that there is periodic turnover within the ranks of commissioners. Even with the current changes, "there is still a lot of institutional knowledge and experience among commissioners," she said.

Commissioner Koken said longtime commissioners still serving include Jim Long of North Carolina and George Dale of Mississippi. Mr. Dale has been Mississippi's commissioner since 1975, and Mr. Long has served as North Carolina's commissioner since 1984.

Mr. Long said that there have been several large shifts in the NAIC membership, including ones in 1995 and 2002.

In his view the current membership has a good balance of longtime commissioners and new commissioners with a fresh approach. For new commissioners, there is a mentor program because becoming accustomed to all the issues that the NAIC addresses can be like "taking a drink of water from a fire hydrant," he explained.

Among the topics of discussion that Mr. Long said the commissioners are talking about is how to get more companies and states to use SERFF, the System for Electronic Rate Form Filing. In 2004 171,000 filings were made on the SERFF system, he said.

Mr. Long said that individual working groups of the NAIC will also take up the proposed federal insurance road map known as the State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act (SMART). He said they are examining each title of the proposed law.

John Oxendine, Georgia insurance commissioner since Jan. 1995, said that each new group of commissioners brings "new talents" to the NAIC, and "I don't think it [the turnover] will have any effect on the NAIC."

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Long-Term Members Missing At NAIC Confab

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