Commissioner Fitzgerald Testifies Before Congress

Michigan’s Financial and Insurance Services Commissioner, Frank M. Fitzgerald, testified last week before the U.S. House of Representatives Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee, part of the Committee on Financial Services. Fitzgerald’s testimony highlighted the importance of state insurance regulation and recent modernization efforts in Michigan, as well as across the country.

Fitzgerald told the subcommittee: “State insurance regulators recognize that traditional methods of insurance regulation need to be modernized to allow the insurance industry to keep pace with its competitors and to ensure that regulators are able to serve the best interests of insurance consumers. I am excited to report that we remain strongly committed to the product speed-to-market modernization initiative with unprecedented consensus.”

The passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley federal legislation in 1999 allowed the insurance, financial institutions, and securities industries to sell products across the industries. With the barriers between the industries removed, some insurance companies were at a competitive disadvantage with the other financial services providers because they still had to file with each individual state.

Michigan is participating in the modernization efforts of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and the 10-state limited launch of the Coordinated Advertising, Rate, Forms Review Authority (CARFRA). CARFRA is a single point of filing, review and approval for insurance products. The process combines national standards, efficient state based procedures for processing filings, appropriate consumer protections and quality filing reviews.

More information on these initiatives is available at www.naic.org and www.carfra.org.