Insurer Governance Tops NCOIL Agenda

Insurer Governance Tops NCOIL Agenda

NU Online News Service, July 12, 1:15 p.m. EDT?A national state legislators group said revelations about corporate misdeeds is spurring the group to focus on insurers governance and accountability when it meets Friday in Chicago.[@@]

The National Council of Insurance Legislators said a subcommittee will begin investigating the appropriate role of the states regarding insurer corporate governance and accountability issues.

"Recent corporate scandals have alarmed state legislators. We need to ensure that there are no gaps between state and federal corporate governance and accountability statutes and regulations," said Kentucky State Rep. Bob Damron, D- Nicholasville.

Mr. Damron, chairman of the NCOIL Financial Services Subcommittee, said governance and accountability will lead the agenda when the panel meets in the Hotel Inter-Continental, Chicago, at 11:15 a.m., as part of the NCOIL Summer Meeting.

Rep. Damron said the subcommittee will focus especially on the appropriate state-level corporate governance oversight of insurance companies not under the regulatory purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly mutual, nonprofit or closely held insurers.

NCOIL noted that the failure of financial services regulators to uncover in a timely manner problems in such high profile cases as Enron and WorldCom prompted Congress to enact a tough new law in 2002 to increase corporate policing.

The consumer protection measures in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which increases the required accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made to regulators, only applies to companies required to make filings to the SEC, noted NCOIL.

The group's Summer Meeting will run from July 15 through July 18.

NCOIL is an organization of state legislators interested in insurance legislation and regulation. Many legislators active in NCOIL either chair or are members of the committees responsible for insurance legislation in their respective state houses across the country.