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The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has voted in favor of new regulations for...
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Monday, December 3, 2012, 5:31 AM ETThe National Association of Insurance Commissioners has voted in favor of new regulations for how life insurers fix reserves for future claims in a decision that could free up billions of dollars for acquisitions, dividend increases and buybacks. However, critics, who include New York's Benjamin Lawsky, fear that insurers will become under-reserved and vulnerable to economic downturns.
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This news story has 8 comments:
Don't these commissioners have a personal agenda?? Did we not learn from
when the SEC fiddled with the net capital rule in 2004 which helped in the Bear Stearns collapse???
Now the insurance commissioners strike back by setting forces in motion to compromise capital requirements, using the same type of thinking that has made banks implode and created the financial crisis.
If we would get the Fed off the case and leave capital requirements where they were, things would be fine.
Insurance regulation is (or used to be) about protecting policyholders, not shareholders.
Any action it takes that threatens the promise it made to the person who put their faith in the company's ability to pay it's claims is a betrayal of that trust.
A mutual company has its duty of loyalty to its policyholders, who are the owners.