NU Online News Service, June 4, 3:12 p.m. EDT
Insurance-industry executives need to involve themselves more in the rule-making process as regulations and laws develop, as changing rules afterward is a difficult process, a former New York State regulator says.
Speaking Thursday at the International Association of Claim Professionals in New York, James J. Wrynn, partner at the law firm Goldberg Segalla, LLP, and former Superintendent of Insurance for the State of New York, told attendees, "The more you engage, the better the results will be," says Wrynn. "We all want to do it right, but sometimes we need to step back a little and ask if this is the best way to proceed. You have to get out and get your voice heard."
Wrynn observes that after a crisis, there is usually a rush to create regulations aimed at avoiding a reoccurrence of the event again. The challenge, he says, is to get the regulation right during that process.
Otherwise, he says, "We can be stuck with a bad decision for a long period of time," says Wrynn.
With regulators in the United States and Europe developing rules, he says there is the potential for "confusion and over regulation if it is not done correctly, but there is also an opportunity to get it right."
Wrynn states, "The insurance industry has done tremendously well through the financial crisis. Everyone should be stepping back and saying 'Look at us. We did great.' We should not be jumping through hoops to compete with other sectors of the financial industry to make change. They should be looking to us and asking 'What are you guys doing right and what didn't we do right?' Instead, we seem to be going in the opposite direction."
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