NAIC & PIA Agree — Do Away with the Federal Insurance Office

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has put out its 2025 federal legislative and regulatory priorities. So has PIA National. At the top of both lists is giving more strength in the nation’s state-based insurance regulatory system.

The NAIC’s legislative priority news release said the association wants the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) dissolved. “Ensuring the future success of the U.S. state-based system of insurance regulation demands constructive coordination with our federal peers and appropriate deference and independence of the regulatory system from federal intrusion,” the NAIC said. “For this reason, NAIC Members call for the elimination of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office, as FIO stands in direct conflict with the states' role as primary regulators, complicates the states’ engagement with fellow insurance regulators globally, duplicates confidential data collection from the insurance industry, and blurs the line that separates Treasury from independent financial regulators.”

PIA National agrees. In it’s 2025 policy priorities, the PIA has called for the elimination of the FIO.

“The mandate of the FIO was substantially expanded by the Biden administration’s 2021 Executive Order (EO) on Climate-Related Financial Risk. In 2022, the Treasury Secretary issued a notice and request for comment on a proposed “climate-related financial risk data collection,” the PIA noted. “PIA registered its objections to this proposal, noting its potential to unnecessarily duplicate state-based regulatory data collection and the burdensome nature of its unusual level of granularity. Fortunately, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has assumed responsibility for the data call and rendered it more circumscribed than it was when FIO was handling it in the absence of state insurance commissioners.”

In today’s political climate, the PIA hopes the FIO will be one of the federal offices eliminated.

“The FIO remains a perpetual threat to the primacy of state-based insurance regulation, and the continued expansion of its authority must be stopped,” the PIA continued in its 2025 policy priorities. “To prevent its further intrusion on states’ power to regulate the business of insurance, PIA supports the FIO Elimination Act H.R. 643, which would fully repeal the office.”

The PIA also wants the Insurance Data Protection Act to be passed. It hasn’t been introduced in the 119th Congress but when it is, and if it passes, the reforms will significantly narrow the scope of the FIO’s power by taking way the FIO’s subpoena power.

Source link: NAIC — https://bit.ly/4iFMUUD

Source link: PIA National — https://bit.ly/427jpnS