Regulators here say they wish they had had a chance to contribute to a National Conference of Insurance Legislators analysis on state regulation of insurance.
Researchers commissioned by the Insurance Legislators Foundation prepared the analysis for NCOIL, Troy, N.Y.
The researchers did not get input from the regulatory community, and some of the analysis was "undocumented," using attributions such as "some say," according to Walter Bell, the Alabama insurance commissioner and the outgoing president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo.
Bell spoke about the NCOIL analysis during a legislative liaison meeting at the NAIC winter meeting.
When lawmakers start to talk about the ILF analysis in earnest in 2008, they should include insurance commissioners in the conversation so that "we can discuss what the case is today and not the perception of the authors," Bell said.
Regulators and legislators are "both in this together" in the effort to preserve state authority to oversee insurance regulation, and "innuendos can be very misleading," Bell said.
A study can be biased by whoever is funding it, Bell added.
