B/D News

The House passed in early March legislation creating a uniform licensing system for insurance agents and brokers. The National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 2554), also dubbed NARAB II, was introduced by Reps. David Scott (D-Georgia) and Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), along with 44 additional bipartisan cosponsors. Marliss McManus, senior federal affairs director for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), said in a statement that NARAB II “provides common sense reforms that level the playing field between states for agents, allowing licensed agents to offer their services across all jurisdictions without impeding on the regulatory rights of the states themselves.” NAMIC says that the legislation would establish the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers through which one set of licensing, continuing education, and other insurance producer qualification standards could be adopted and applied on a multi-state basis. However, NAMIC states, “it would preserve the right of states to license, supervise, discipline, and establish licensing fees for insurance producers, as well as to prescribe and enforce laws and regulations with regard to insurance-related consumer protection and unfair trade practices.”

Madoff victims beware. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which maintains a special reserve fund mandated by Congress to protect the customers of insolvent brokerage firms, is alerting international regulators about a “look-alike” Web site for a fictitious organization that is mimicking the SIPC Web site in an apparent attempt to target Madoff victims. SIPC says the phony organization dubs itself the “International Securities Investor Protection Corporation (I-SIPC.com)” and copies several aspects of the SIPC Web site artwork and structural design. “It is soliciting Madoff victims to submit claims, which SIPC is warning could result in ‘phishing’ or other identify theft problems,” SIPC said in a statement. “The phony group claims to be based in Geneva and also maintains that it has ties to the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, among others.”

The phony group’s Web site includes a supposed testimonial from a Madoff victim who received funds from the organization. SIPC says that “in a link from the homepage of the site that leads to a photo of a huge stack of U.S. currency, the group falsely claims to have collaborated with Interpol to recover $1.3 billion in Madoff money from a hideout in Malaysia.”