Monday, December 14, 2009

NCSL Drafts Resolution Opposing NAIC’s NISC Proposal

Following a contentious challenge to a blueprint to create a national insurance body titled the National Insurance Supervisory Commission, state legislators developed a draft resolution opposing the effort by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo.

The resolution was drafted during the meeting of the Communications, Financial Services and Interstate Commerce Committee on December 11 during the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington.

Rep. Brian Kennedy, chairman of the NCSL CFI Committee, and state rep. D-Hopkinton, R.I., emphasized that this is a working draft and additional time will be spent on the issue. The resolution is expected to be finalized during the NSCL’s Spring Forum in Washington. The committee voted to unanimously proceed on moving forward with the resolution.

Kennedy said that Ohio Director Mary Jo Hudson, spoke about the proposal while the committee was debating the issue.

During the NAIC meeting in San Francisco last week, Jane Cline, the new NAIC president and West Virginia insurance commissioner said that this is strictly a working draft and that no decision to pursue this plan has been finalized. The remark was a response a contentious exchange between state insurance legislators and regulators during the NAIC meeting.

The draft resolution resolves that:
--the NISC proposal to be a premature and misguided effort that will not appease those who only desire full federal control of the business of insurance;
--the NISC proposal is an unwarranted preemption of sovereign rights of states and in particular, the constitutional authority of state legislatures to decide state insurance policy;
--the NCSL is opposed to the establishment of NISC;
--that NCSL calls upon the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to cease from any further consideration and advocacy of the NISC proposal;
--The NCSL will ask our colleagues on state legislative committees that have jurisdiction for insurance to begin inquiries into the NISC proposal and to determine the position of each state’s insurance department’s participation in the development of such a proposal; and,
--The NCSL calls upon the NAIC to work with state legislators and governors on mutual efforts to modernize and streamline insurance regulation that is not predicated on a preemption of state legislative authority to make state policy.

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