Lawmaker Continues Push To End NAIC Secrecy

Brian Kennedy, vice president of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators said he is not giving up his effort to end locked-door sessions of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

The Democratic state representative from Hopkinton, R.I., recently wrote NAIC president Walter Bell, the Alabama insurance commissioner, urging the group not to resort to closed door meetings as often as they have been recently.

While the state lawmaker plans no legal action at this time, he is undertaking a letter-writing effort to promote his aims. He noted that state attorney generals are being alerted and some other move might come later.

“I am preparing to send out letters to my legislative colleagues across the country, to call their attention to the enigma known as the NAIC,” Mr. Kennedy told NU Online.

He said he felt it is important for his fellow state lawmakers to know that their insurance commissioners are “flaunting the open meeting laws of their individual states.”

In addition, he said the $50 million organization has “created a dedicated revenue stream that is unheard of amongst not-for-profit organizations in our country.”

Moreover, legislators are now contacting their attorney general in some states.

“I believe that once this information has been shared with legislators from all of the states, it may cause some additional action to be determined at that time,” he said.

Mr. Kennedy will attend the NAIC meeting next month in San Francisco “to determine if there have been any changes.”

Meanwhile, consumer groups have joined the fray.

In a letter to Mr. Bell, consumer representatives, whose attendance at the meetings are funded by the NAIC, asserted that “our experience has been, with few exceptions, that the NAIC committee and working groups hold executive sessions when there is no valid purpose for such an executive session.”

As an example, the group said the new procedure for adopting model laws was adopted without any public input or observation.

“This is a profound policy change by the NAIC–akin to a legislature changing the ways laws are enacted–without any public input or observation,” the letter stated.

In a statement earlier this month, Mr. Bell said the group has a very liberal open meetings policy and reserves the right to close meetings when necessary.