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Entry: Treasury's Brave New World Of Financial Innovation
posted by InsurancePerson
Apr 01, 2008 10:42AM
I don't work in life insurance, so I won't comment on the need for regulatory reform there, but I agree that the property/casualty market needs it. The current system in which a company has to deal with a regulator in each state in which it wants to do business is obviously wasteful and, as someone mentioned earlier, antiquated. As far as the industry buying the regulators, I think this varies widely by state. In states where the insurance commissioner is elected, insurance regulation becomes highly politicized and industry influence is muted. A commissioner who is using his/her office as a springboard for the next governor's race does not want to look like an industry stooge. Elsewhere the industry may have more influence, but the opportunities to exploit the most vulnerable insurance consumers--individuals and small companies--are still quite limited, at least with regards to price. The property/casualty contracts that these consumers buy are highly commoditized and it's not that hard for the consumers to shop around.
Entry: French/Harlem Add Themselves To List Of People Who Hate Bear Enough To Organize
posted by InsurancePerson
Apr 11, 2008 2:57PM
Followers of Lyndon LaRouche is my guess.
Entry: Treasury's Brave New World Of Financial Innovation
posted by InsurancePerson
Mar 31, 2008 7:58PM
@7:18, the Blueprint envisions the federal regulator working "in tandem with the states" on areas like fraud and consumer protection laws. I don't know how this would actually work; do nationally chartered banks deal with this issue?
Florida has two state-run mechanisms that deal with hurricane risk, both of which essentially move the cost of insuring such risk onto Florida taxpayers and insurance consumers. It is socialism, pure and simple. The federally chartered market wouldn't do anything to alleviate the burden that Floridians continue to bear for past hurricanes, but it will (in theory at least) stop forcing low-risk property owners to subsidize high-risk property owners for future storms through their insurance premiums.