WASHINGTON--Five leading financial services trade groups said today they have re-committed their industries to lobby the next Congress for passage of comprehensive legislation creating an optional federal charter for insurance companies and agents.

The statement came from Frank Keating, American Council of Life Insurers president and chief executive officer; Marc Racicot, American Insurance Association president; and Edward Yingling, American Bankers Association president and CEO, after a meeting Tuesday in the ACLI offices.

Other groups involved are the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers and the Financial Services Forum.

The session included the trade group officials and lobbyists for member-companies.

The groups have created the Optional Federal Charter Coalition to lobby the incoming Congress for an OFC next year.

Yesterday Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., presumptive chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he would be supportive of an OFC for life companies, because the products life companies sell are uniform and not subject to geographic variations. But he was more "skeptical" about an OFC for property/casualty insurers.

Mr. Frank's comments made public views he has expressed in private at fundraisers to lobbyists on the issue.

Confirmation of Rep. Frank in the chairmanship is unlikely to be made until Congress returns for a lame-duck session Tuesday.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., presumptive chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has been more circumspect in his comments about support for the OFC in any form.

In their statement today, the trade association leaders representing insurance companies, banks, and insurance agents and brokers, stressed what they said was an urgent need for national insurance regulatory reform.

"The past two Congresses have held a series of hearings about the problems with the current, state-based insurance regulatory regime," the statement said. "Conversations began in earnest last year about implementing a meaningful new system that would include an optional federal charter," it added.

The three executives noted in their statement a recent speech on U.S. international competitiveness by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, during which he discussed insurance and lamented the "consequence of our regulatory structure is an ever-expanding rulebook in which multiple regulators impose rule upon rule upon rule."

The Coalition said it "agrees that insurance regulatory reform is integral to maintaining America's leading role in the international financial services marketplace."

It added that the "current antiquated, state-by-state regulatory system reduces U.S. competitiveness in the global insurance arena when competing head-to-head with more efficient and modernized foreign markets."

The statement said that consumers are also "harmed because they ultimately pay the costs for a regulatory system riddled with redundancies and red tape that ultimately deprives consumers of the best possible services and product innovations."

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Insurers', Bankers' Groups Pledge Another OFC Push

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