Insurer Group NAMIC Names Illinois Rep. Biggert ‘Legislator of Year’

September 21, 2011

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) presented the Federal Legislator of the Year Award to U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., at its annual convention in Indianapolis.

‘Rep. Biggert is a well-respected member of the House Financial Services Committee, where she has long taken a leadership role on many insurance issues,’ said Charles M. Chamness, NAMIC president and CEO. ‘Her experience as a legislator, lawyer, community leader, and small business owner gives her valuable perspective as she represents the suburban Chicago area, which she has been serving since 1998.’

Biggert currently serves as chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity that has direct jurisdiction over insurance issues. In her role on the committee she has most recently advanced legislation to reauthorize and reform the National Flood Insurance Program.

In addition, Biggert has been voted by her peers as one of the 10 most bipartisan Republican members of the House.

‘Rep. Biggert has a great understanding and appreciation of the property/casualty insurance industry. She has been a strong opponent of proposals calling for an optional federal charter and has publicly stated that the debate over increased federal regulation of insurance is dead so long as she chairs the insurance subcommittee,’ Chamness said.

NAMIC opposes an optional federal regulation of insurance.

Chamness also praised Biggert for insisting in the last Congress during debate on the creation of a Federal Insurance Office in the Dodd-Frank bill, that the new federal office have no regulatory authority.

The NAMIC Legislator of the Year Award is a statuette of Benjamin Franklin, who founded the first successful mutual insurance company in America more than 250 years ago. That company, the Philadelphia Contributionship for Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, is still thriving as The Contributionship.

Topics Carriers Legislation Illinois

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