Former N.Y. Supt. Mills: State Regulation Has Holes to be Filled

Looking back on his two-year tenure, former New York Superintendent of Insurance Howard Mills says state regulation could stand some improvement.

According to the former Empire State insurance chief, the state regulatory scheme has certain strengths in the areas of solvency monitoring and consumer protection, but falls short in others areas.

“[W]e need to do a much better job on speed-to-market issues, on transportability of products, getting new products to the market quicker, enabling the industry to be faster in their innovation. That ultimately benefits the consumer,” he said in an exclusive interview with Insurance Journal before he stepped down from the post.

There is a need for more federal involvement in insurance regulation, claims the Republican, who since leaving office has joined Deloitte & Touche USA LLP as chief advisor with its insurance industry group.

“I do think that we need a greater role of the federal government in regulating insurance, so that we can move things like a national approach to dealing with natural catastrophes, dedicated CAT reserving, for example, and move issues of international consequence like the reinsurance collateral issue much faster than the state-based system has been able to deal with it thus far,” Mills continued.

Mills discussed his time in the regulator’s chair and lessons learned in the role in a video interview in Insurance Journal’s exclusive “The Commissioners” series, which presents interviews with 15 state insurance regulators. The complete video interview with former Superintendent Mills is www.insurancejournal/broadcasts, in the video section of the Web site.