Credit: Maren Winter/Adobe Stock
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners helps state insurance regulators write rules that affect what kinds of annuities life insurance companies write and what kinds of investments they make with their $11 trillion in assets.
Insurance industry groups are joining with consumers and consumer groups to ask that the NAIC make its meetings easier for members of the public to follow.
The NAIC's executive committee held a hearing on the group's open meetings policy last week in San Diego at its spring national meeting.
The NAIC holds some meetings in person and some through video conferencing systems. The group charges for access to call recordings.
Peter Gould, a retiree and annuity owner, has been lobbying for more than a year for expanded public access to online NAIC meetings.
"Access to both livestreams and recordings of all public sessions — whether committee calls, task force calls, in-person meetings or any other public meeting — should be available to all stakeholders at no charge and be easily accessible," Gould said in a written comment on the NAIC's open meeting policy posted on the executive committee's section of the NAIC's website.
The current rules favor industry-paid lobbyists, Gould said.
Erica Weyhenmeyer, a policy vice president for market regulation and workers' compensation at the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies — a group for insurance industry lobbyists — wrote to say that NAMIC also wants more NAIC transparency.
NAMIC's focus is on whether the meetings themselves are open to the public or held in closed sessions.
"There has been an increased reliance on regulator-to-regulator sessions," Weyhenmeyer wrote. "Meeting notices and agendas do not always clearly identify the basis for closure."
Closed sessions should not be used for general policy deliberations, broad regulatory strategy discussions or administrative convenience, Weyhenmeyer said.
NAIC officials themselves have noted that the group tries to be open, and that any efforts to change a specific state's insurance laws, regulations or rule interpretations are subject to the transparency and public comment requirements in effect in those states.
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