“Over the past two months, we have worked diligently to inform ourselves of what is being requested, as well as what might be necessary and possible,” said NAIC President and New Hampshire Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny. “While many of the ACLI’s requests have been under consideration by insurance regulators for quite some time, I can assure that careful deliberation will be exercised before any action is taken.”
The NAIC formed the Capital and Surplus Relief Working Group to review the ACLI request. The Working Group then enlisted the aid of several NAIC technical groups to provide their initial analyses of the ACLI proposal. In addition to a public comment period that ended Dec. 26, 2008, the Working Group will hold a public hearing to gather additional comments and information on January 27, 2009.
“State regulators hold insurers to conservative solvency standards to provide the ultimate protection to consumers — making sure a company will be able to pay claims,” Sevigny added. “We will not contemplate making any changes that would negatively impact existing consumer-protection measures.”
The ACLI request includes nine specific items that propose changes to reserving, risk-based capital, reinsurance collateral and accounting requirements. For more information, visit the Web page for the NAIC Capital and Surplus Relief Working Group at www.naic.org/committees_ex_capital_surplus_relief.htm.