Congressman Paul Kanjorski, Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, announced that his Subcommittee will hold a hearing to protect insurance consumers from risks in the insurance system and to prevent insurance companies from posing a systemic risk and threatening the American financial system. This systemic risk may be the federal government’s only legitimate concern when it comes to regulating insurance.
Chairman Kanjorski noted the following:
“It is now clear that we must restructure the federal government’s role with regard to insurance oversight,” said Chairman Kanjorski. “At the very least, the federal government must have in-house expertise on this significant sector of the financial services industry and have an ability to watch over insurers as part of broad systemic risk and consumer protection authorities. A federal office, focused on collecting and analyzing insurance information, would provide the minimum role for the federal government in ensuring that insurance is not at a disadvantage as compared to other financial products by helping Congress and the federal government make better decisions regarding insurance policy matters.”
Everybody should be concerned that the insurance industry is using federal laws and regulations to take the rights of policyholders that the states have provided for over a hundred years.
