By
Atlanta
Insurers and producers urged state insurance regulators to oppose efforts to bring variable products under the additional purview of state securities regulation.
In response, insurance regulators at the spring meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners here said they would review comments and possibly make a decision by the NAIC summer meeting in June.
“Do you agree that variable annuities are securities?” Larry Mirel, insurance commissioner for the District of Columbia, asked industry representatives.
In response, Carl Wilkerson, chief counsel of securities and litigation with the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, said that for federal purposes, they are securities but for state regulatory purposes, they are insurance products. Unlike other securities, according to Wilkerson, this is a hybrid securities product.
Insurance departments have been very effective in regulating the product, he continued.