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June 06, 2008 at 12:57 PM
The House Financial Services Committee Capital Markets Subcommittee will hold a hearing Tuesday on a bill that could create an insurance information office within the U.S. Treasury Department.
The department recommended creating the office in a financial services modernization blueprint unveiled March 31.
Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee, has introduced a bill, H.R. 5840, that would implement the insurance office provision by creating an Office of Insurance Information.
In addition to gathering data, the OII would give advice on insurance regulation to officials in the Executive Branch.
In addition to convening the Capital Markets Subcommittee hearing, Kanjorski released proposed changes to his bill.
The changes deal with matters such as potential conflicts between state regulations and international agreements and the OII’s main sources of balance sheet and market conduct information.
One provision specifies that the OII would get balance sheet and market conduct data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo.
Another provision would make a representative of the Federal Trade Commission a mandatory member of a board that would advise the Treasury secretary on insurance-related issues.
Insurers have clashed with the NAIC over the handling of market conduct data, and the FTC was barred through a provision in 1980 from investigating insurance companies unless it is authorized to do so by Congress.
