FIRE Podcast- R.J. Lehmann: Capitol Hill update

by R.J. Lehmann on November 18, 2011

In this week’s edition of the FIRE Podcast, I offer updates on major insurance issues brewing on Capitol Hill, including delays in getting a Senate floor vote on legislation to reform the National Flood Insurance Program (the program has now been extended temporarily through Dec. 16); the potential that the Super Committee proposal could be hijacked with a ‘secret farm bill’ that would cut off debate on further cuts to the Federal Crop Insurance Corp.; and a trio of draft bills that would roll back virtually all powers granted to federal agencies under the Dodd-Frank Act  to oversee insurance.

On that last issue, of particular concern are provisions of one of the bills that would gut the newly created Federal Insurance Office of virtually all of its information-gathering powers, leaving it completely beholden to the states and the NAIC for any data it might need. Even worse, the measure would tie the FIO’s hands should it want to share that data with other agencies or the general public.

I’ve written here before about why I think the FIO should make insurers’ statutory financial data available to the public on-line with a free open source database, much like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR service. Some have taken me to task for that proposal – including of the always excellent Aleph Blog — on grounds that the NAIC needs the revenues from its sales of insurance data to fund services to underfunded state insurance departments. I tried to dispel this myth in this week’s podcast and in a recent media advisory sent out about the draft bill:

Taken together, the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia collected $2.48 billion in regulatory fees and assessments from the insurance industry in 2010, but spent only half that total, $1.24 billion, on regulatory activities. Insurance departments also collected $63.5 million in fines and penalties and another $1.22 billion in miscellaneous revenues, while states separately collected a whopping $14.82 billion in insurance premium taxes. Put together, states spent only a measly 6.7 percent of the $18.58 billion they collected from the insurance industry last year on regulating the industry.

The problem has never been that state insurance departments lack resources. It is that states have grown accustomed to viewing the regulation of insurance as a profit center, a slush fund from which lawmakers can perpetually draw to patch other holes in state budgets. States can certainly work out a system to share resources and services that doesn’t require keeping financial data collected by public employees with public resources a secret from the public.”

Listen to the podcast here, or subscribe to the FIRE Podcast in iTunes.

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  • http://alephblog.com David_Merkel

    I did not mean to “take you to task.”u00a0 Look, I’m fine with trying to get the statutory documents for free.u00a0 But it will mean that states will have to make up the revenue gap, and that’s fine.nnGiven the way that state insurance departments act, I always assumed they were underfunded.u00a0 I was wrong.nnStates like cash cows, places where they quietly get excess revenue.u00a0 If you succeed, it will make my life easier… one central repository, great!u00a0 I won’t even notice when Maryland raises taxes on soda pop one cent per 64 ozs to make up the difference.

  • R.J. Lehmann

    Oh, believe me, I welcome the input. Your response was one I received from a number of quarters privately. And I think it’s an important point to clarify. It might be narrowly true that state regulation is “underfunded” (leaving aside that there are many functions, such as prior approval rate review, that one could question whether states should be doing them at all) but it certainly isn’t due to a lack of resources.

  • https://outofthestormnews.com/2011/12/09/the-insurance-data-protection-act%e2%80%99s-hidden-sop-to-the-naic/ The Insurance Data Protection Act’s hidden sop to the NAIC

    [...] class action settlementsFIRE Podcast- Daniel Schwarcz: Insurers should publish their policies FIRE Podcast- R.J. Lehmann: Capitol Hill updateFIRE Podcast- Robert Gordon: Insurers aren't 'too big to fail'FIRE Podcast- Tim Carney: Left and [...]

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