NU Online News Service, Aug. 24, 3:30 p.m.EDT

Alfred Gross plans to retire from his post as Virginia insurancecommissioner Dec. 31.

Commissioner Gross, the head of the Bureau of Insurance at theVirginia State Corporation Commission, has been with the bureausince 1981, and he has been commissioner since 1996. The Virginiabureau regulates about 2,500 insurance companies, groups and plansand about 184,000 insurance agencies and agents.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission is conducting a searchfor Commissioner Gross's replacement.

The bureau has not said what Commissioner Gross will do next.Two other mid-Atlantic insurance commissioners, Steve Larsen ofMaryland and Joel Ario of Pennsylvania, have taken jobs with thenew federal Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversightat the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in recentmonths, and the U.S. Treasury Department has been looking for ahead for a new Federal Insurance Office.

Commissioner Gross has been chair of the Financial ConditionCommittee at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners(NAIC). At the NAIC, Commissioner Gross has been a leader inefforts to shift to a priciples-based reserving (PBR) system. PBRadvocates would like to see insurers rely more on generalprinciples, modern statistical forecasting methods and actuarialjudgment in assessing insurer reserves, and less on staticformulas.