Lobby Against Fed Control, NAIC President Urges

Lobby Against Fed Control, NAIC President Urges

By Gary Mogel

NU Online News Service, June 23, 12:02 p.m. EDT, New York?Mike Pickens, Arkansas insurance commissioner and president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, yesterday opened the NAIC session here by reiterating his position that federal initiatives to regulate insurance are fatally flawed and won't work.

"We're not trying to protect our jobs, we're trying to protect consumers," Mr. Pickens told his fellow regulators. "Consumers don't want to have to call Washington, D.C. in order to make a complaint about insurance."

He said that preserving state regulation must be a national, "not federal," movement that all the commissioners and their staffs should work for, especially when testifying before Congress or in any other forum.

Although Mr. Pickens conceded that state regulation needs changes to modernize it and make it more efficient, he said it generally works well.

Other issues touched on by Mr. Pickens included credit scoring, model laws and protecting senior citizens from predatory insurance practices.

He noted that many states have adopted a version of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators model law on credit scoring, sometimes with changes that made it even more protective of consumer rights.

Regarding model laws, Mr. Pickens stressed that models should be adopted "not that three states will pass, but that an overwhelming majority of states will pass."

He also strongly criticized insurance practices that take advantage of older people, such as the sale of annuities that benefit the insurers more than the people buying them.