The American Insurance Association and a coalition representing seven property and casualty insurance companies are urging the Financial Stability Oversight Council to clarify the criteria it will use to determine its oversight authority.

The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America is urging the Financial Stability Oversight Council to establish precise methodology for evaluating whether an insurer is systemically risky and should be subjected to federal oversight.

A hearing has been scheduled by a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee for March 9 amid signs legislation reauthorizing the program that passed the House last year will soon be re-introduced.

Five U.S. senators are asking the Obama administration to move promptly to fill the insurance slot on the Financial Stability Oversight Council as well as to appoint the director of the Federal Insurance Office.

The Department of Health and Human Services will be providing $199 million to states to help defray the cost of reviewing health insurance premium rate increases of more than 10 percent.

Funding for implementing the medical loss ratio provision of the health care reform law would be eliminated for the remainder of this fiscal year under the budget passed by the House last Saturday.

The role that insurance agents play in the health marketplace in 2014 and beyond will likely be left up to the states, said Joel Ario, head of the insurance exchange bureau of the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Government Accountability Office has sounded the alarm on National Flood Insurance Program shortcomings and has called on Congress to restructure the program.