NU Online News Service, Jan. 19, 1:57 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON—An insurance trade group is urging the Obama administration to promptly nominate the insurance voting member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council.

The letter by the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) was written as the FSOC holds its first meeting of the year today.

Industry officials believe that the top candidate for the voting insurance member of the FSOC is Roy Woodall, a former Kentucky insurance commissioner.

According to highly placed industry sources, insurance representatives met with Neal Wolin, deputy Treasury secretary and a former top official of The Hartford, about the issue of the voting insurance member.

At the meeting, Mr. Wolin apparently indicated that the administration is "not far along" in determining who should be nominated for the insurance voting member slot, the officials said.

According to several people familiar with the meeting, Mr. Woodall's name did not come up at the meeting.

Under the Dodd-Frank financial services reform law, the job requires "an independent member appointed by the president, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, having insurance expertise."

The panel is also supposed to have two other insurance officials as non-voting members. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has placed John Huff, Missouri's commissioner, as one member.

The other non-voting insurance member of the FSOC is supposed to be the director of the Federal Insurance Office. That person has not yet been selected by the Treasury secretary.

After serving as Kentucky's commissioner, Mr. Woodall served as president of the National Association of Life Companies and vice president of the American Council of Life Insurers. He has also served as an attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Atlanta-based law firm Morris, Manning & Martin and as an insurance consultant at the Congressional Research Service.

He joined the Treasury Department in early 2003, where he worked in the office of the assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial institutions during the Bush administration.

Several insurance industry officials close to the issue said Mr. Woodall was a registered independent and had worked with both Democrats and Republicans during his public service career.

David Sampson, PCI president and CEO, said the association is concerned that the FSOC will be dealing with critical issues facing the financial services sectors without "the participation of key representatives of the insurance industry, as required by statute." 

"Although one non-voting representative [Mr. Huff] of the insurance regulatory community has been appointed to the FSOC, PCI is extremely concerned that the FSOC is working on highly important decisions, especially relating to determinations of which financial firms are systemically important, without the benefit of insurance expertise from the Federal Insurance Office director and without the vote of an insurance industry expert member, as is required by law," Mr. Sampson added.

Blain Rethmeier, a spokesman for the American Insurance Association (AIA), said, "This is obviously a critical position, but we understand that a process for finding a qualified individual is underway.  The administration wants to be deliberate and has a good grasp of the importance of those who sit on the council."