Lawmakers To Confer On Financial Reform

The House bill effectively gives state regulators a veto authority over foreign trade agreements negotiated by the Treasury Department and even allows courts and the Congress to pay a role in the process.

State legislators and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners have written several letters to conferees supporting the weaker House version, which would create a Federal Insurance Office with limited subpoena power to secure industry and company information.

But 9 insurance associations, including the American Council of Life Insurers, asked in a letter to conferees that the current Senate language on the preemptive authority of the ONI be retained.

“Enabling the U.S. to engage in and conclude international agreements with foreign nations on prudential insurance measures ensures uniform and equitable treatment for foreign and domestic insurers and reinsurers alike, fosters innovation and growth in U.S. markets and promotes job creation,” the letter said.

The fiduciary standard issue is important to life insurance agents.

Currently, the standard is that the recommended financial product must be suitable for the investor. Under the House bill, that would rise to a fiduciary standard.

The Senate bill calls for the Securities and Exchange Commission to study the issue and propose to Congress what should be done to address “regulatory gaps and overlaps in existing rules.”

For agents, a key is that the base text for deliberations on the legislation would be the Senate version, which supports the industry provision.

But both the Obama administration and Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said they support the fiduciary standard. The Senate bill does not provide that authority.

“The key thing from our perspective is that if Congress wants us to study the issue again, that’s fine. But at the end of that study we need the authority to go ahead and take action,” Schapiro said. “[The legislation] doesn’t give us that authority. That’s the real flaw from our perspective. There is not a grant of authority when the study is done to go beyond our existing authority in respect to rule writing.”