THE INFLUENCE GAME: Insurers eye new regulator

[dkf]

Insurance industry sees financial overhaul as chance for long-sought rules

* Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer
* Wednesday April 22, 2009, 6:25 am EDT

Industry estimates suggest a rather obscure change in federal law could be worth billions of dollars annually to insurers. Key lawmakers and Obama administration officials say they're open to it, and industry lobbyists see the drive to overhaul financial rules in the wake of the meltdown as their best chance in a long time to achieve it.

The change would give insurance companies the option of escaping state regulators by setting up a new federal agency and letting them choose whose rules to obey -- a proposal consumer advocates view with horror.

If the companies get their way, the financial crackdown that President Barack Obama and Congress have promised as a way to prevent another Wall Street crisis will come with a substantial easing up on insurance companies. Known as an "optional federal charter," the system would free large insurers, which now can be subject to as many as 51 different sets of rules and overseers in the states where they operate, from a regulatory web they say stifles their business and leaves the federal government blind to potential industrywide problems.

It would function much like the system now used to regulate banks, allowing insurance companies to decide whether to be chartered and overseen by the federal government or by individual states.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/THE-INFLUENCE-GAME-Insurers-apf-14994191.html

[hobbit709]

1. You can count on the fact that if the insurance companies are in favor of it

The consumer is going to get a royal screwing.

[valerief]

2. Ain't that the truth! nt