Informa

The Dodd-Frank Act gave Director of the Federal Insurance Office 18 months to produce a report on how to modernize the insurance industry. Inconveniently, Michael McRaith wasn't appointed to that position until more than seven months after the Act was signed into law on July 21, 2010. Despite that challenge, Director McRaith is expected to deliver the report or before next Tuesday, Jan. 31, only ten days after the deadline of Jan. 21, 2012, specified in Dodd-Frank.

An anonymous source told Insurance & Technology that the report is being polished for release, and Howard Mills, chief adviser for Deloitte's (New York) national insurance group, corroborated that assertion in a conversation with I&T this morning.

"The report could be dropping even as we speak," Mills commented.

Director McRaith's comments and demeanor at the Dec. 9 public meeting at the U.S. Department of Treasury on "Insurance Regulation in the United States: Modernization and Improvement," was reassuring to insurance industry observers about the likely content of the Director's report.

"I don't think there will be any scary surprises," Mills said. "I could be wrong, but I don't expect the report to include any attempt to expand the FIO and move beyond the language of Dodd-Frank into actual regulation of the insurance industry."

Mills expects the report to reaffirm the state-based insurance regulatory system but to provide a "prescriptive diagnostic" of how the state regulators can do their job better.

"It's not rocket science; there's a lot of duplicated effort today," Mills explained. "Rate and form filings could be made uniform across the 50 states to benefit the industry and consumers, new products could get to market faster."

Director McRaith could be somewhat more assertive with regard to international matters, according to Mills. "I wouldn't be surprised to see language indicating that the FIO will seek to be very active in the IAIS [International Association of Insurance Supervisors, Basel, Switzerland] and will seek to build consensus among the states," Mills stated.