Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor

Life Health > Life Insurance

Life Exec Backs Reinsurance Regulatory Uniformity Measure

By Staff Writer

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

The current 50-state system for regulating the U.S. life reinsurance industry needs to be replaced.

David Gates, general counsel at Generali USA Life Reassurance Company, Kansas City, Mo., made that argument here Wednesday during a hearing of the capital markets subcommittee of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.

The subcommittee convened the hearing to look at H.R. 5637, a bill that would create a uniform regulatory system for surplus lines insurance and reinsurance.

Most of the witnesses at the hearing represented the property-casualty insurance industry, but Gates spoke on behalf of the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, as well as his own company.

State regulators are doing their best, but “increasingly they are laboring under a system that is incapable of responding adequately to the realities of global risk and capital management,” Gates said at the hearing.

“U.S. regulation of life reinsurance has become increasingly ad hoc and inconsistent,” Gates added. “It has not kept pace with the risk-based regulatory standards of competing financial sectors, such as banking. It has not recognized newer forms of reinsurance as prudent risk management tools for life insurers in their development of consumer-driven financial and retirement security products.”

The ACLI supports H.R. 5637, but it also continues to support broader proposals to let insurers choose between state regulation and federal regulation, Gates said.

“We urge Congress to pursue a comprehensive federal regulatory option for insurers and reinsurers,” Gates concluded.

One lawmaker at the hearing, Rep. Edward Royce, R-Calif., also expressed support for the optional federal charter concept.

There is “widespread agreement that our nation’s regulatory system impedes the ability of insurance consumers to get coverage at the lowest possible cost,” Royce said.

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.