Treasury Seeking Comments On TRIA
By Steven Brostoff, Washington Editor
NU Online News Service, April 30, 12:15 p.m. EDT?The Treasury Department is seeking comments on whether to extend the "make available" requirement of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act through Dec. 31, 2005.[@@]
TRIA requires insurance companies to "make available," or offer, terrorism coverage to all commercial property-casualty policyholders through Dec. 31, 2004. TRIA gives the Treasury Department discretion to determine whether the requirement should be extended through Dec. 31, 2005.
Treasury is coming under pressure from Congress to extend the "make available" requirement.
Last week, 18 members of the House Financial Services Committee, led by Chairman Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow urging him to extend the requirement.
"An extension will ensure that terrorism coverage is widely available while Treasury continues its good work and while private market solutions are still being developed," the letter said.
Treasury must make this determination by Sept. 1. Assistant Treasury Secretary Wayne Abernathy urged anyone with views on the issue to provide Treasury with information in as much detail as possible.
Mr. Abernathy said he hoped the broad request for public input on the "make available" determination would "facilitate the efforts of the Secretary to make a timely determination based upon a solid basis of information and views" from a wide variety of citizens, businesses and industry experts. Comments are due 30 days after the request for information is published in the Federal Register.
Gary Karr, a representative of the Washington-based American Insurance Association, said AIA hopes the discussion about the "make available" requirement can be expanded to include the bigger question of what to do about TRIA itself, which is scheduled to sunset Dec. 31, 2005.
He noted that during a recent House Financial Services Committee hearing, committee members urged Treasury to support a legislative extension of TRIA.
"We think there is a bipartisan consensus that TRIA needs to be extended," Mr. Karr said. "We hope that happens."
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