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June 18, 2006 at 04:00 PM
State insurance regulators, insurers and producers celebrated the launch of the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission here last week and started the business of putting the new entity into operation.
The IIPRC kick-off attracted commissioners from many of the 27 participating states.
Diane Koken, Pennsylvania insurance commissioner and former president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, served as the chair, and Alessandro Iuppa, the current president of the Kansas City, Mo., group, also helped preside over the inaugural session.
The IIPRC is supposed to serve as a single point of filing for life insurance, long term care insurance, disability insurance and annuity products. The NAIC and state insurance regulators created the body to implement one part of a regulatory streamlining effort. NAIC says the enactment of the interstate regulation compact is one of the efforts that points to the effectiveness and value of state insurance regulation.
“There are some who proposed to restructure insurance oversight radically and allow insurance companies to ‘opt out’ of state consumer protections in favor of an untested, industry-funded federal regulator with overlapping and redundant responsibilities,” Iuppa said.
State regulators reject that approach, Iuppa said.
The IIPRC will be housed in interim space in the NAIC’s Washington office and will remain in the Washington area, according to a motion adopted by the new commission. The motion gives IIPRC the option to change its location at a later point.
Part of the decision to locate the IIPRC in the Washington area was based on the need for visibility as well as the need to draw on a talent pool for the yet-to-be-named executive director and staff, according to discussion among commissioners participating in the interstate compact. However, some commissioners maintained that other geographic areas should be explored and that the IIPRC’s new management committee should determine where the IIPRC is based. The decision to accept interim space at NAIC headquarters was based on a need to keep initial costs down, commissioners said.
