Pennsylvania's Koken To Head NAIC

Pennsylvania's Koken To Head NAIC

By Jim Connolly

NU Online News Service, Sept. 13, 12:08 p.m. EDT, Anchorage, Alaska?Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Diane Koken has been elected president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for the remainder of the term left vacant by the abrupt departure of Ernst Csiszar.[@@]

The NAIC, which will vote new officers again in December, also elected a new vice president and secretary treasurer.

Mr. Csiszar, the former South Carolina insurance director, resigned his NAIC post Aug. 18 to become president and chief executive officer of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a major industry lobby group based in Des Plaines, Ill.

Following Mr. Csiszar's announcement the NAIC vice president, Jim Poolman, the North Dakota insurance commissioner, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and would leave his NAIC post so the organization in picking Mr. Csiszar's replacement could select a full leadership team.

Joel Ario, Oregon administrator and current NAIC secretary-treasurer, was elected vice president, and Alessandro Iuppa, Maine superintendent, was elected to take Mr. Ario's post.

Roger Hoadley, a spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo.-based NAIC, said elections must be held again in December, the normal annual cycle for the change in leadership for the organization.

During a break when the election was being held, Mr. Ario said the new leadership's main issue to work on would most likely be Congress' proposed State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act (SMART), the federal road map for modernizing the insurance industry drafted by Reps. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, and Richard Baker, R-Louisiana.