NCOIL Seeks Allies For Insurance Office Fight

State lawmakers, governors and attorneys general “work side-by-side to improve insurance regulation in our states and to ensure that companies and consumers benefit from the competitive marketplace we have fostered,” NCOIL officials write.

NCOIL also is questioning the prominent role H.R. 5840 would give to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., by making the NAIC an OII advisory body.

At a hearing of Kanjorski’s subcommittee held earlier this month, Illinois Insurance Director Michael McRaith offered the NAIC’s “conditional support” for H.R. 5840, provided that the NAIC’s own concerns about federal preemption of state laws were taken into account.

State Rep. Brian Kennedy, D-Hopkinton, R.I., testified at the hearing that NCOIL might see the bill differently if the bill would make NCOIL an official OII advisory body.

However, NCOIL spokesman Michael Humphreys said Wednesday that NCOIL has concerns about the proposed OII itself, not simply the composition of the advisory board, and that those concerns would remain even if NCOIL were part of the advisory board.

NCOIL also has been contacting individual insurance commissioners, to see what they think about H.R. 5840.

“NCOIL would like to confirm your continuing support of successful state insurance regulation and your opposition to H.R. 5840 in its current form,” NCOIL writes in the letter to the commissioners. “The position taken by the NAIC–on behalf of all state insurance regulators–and presented to Congress at a June 10 hearing is a dangerous policy to pursue.”