Montana Congressman Troy Downing — Abolish the Federal Insurance Office

Montana Congressman Troy Downing has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to abolish the Federal Insurance Office (FIO). Downing — who served as Montana’s insurance commissioner before being elected to Congress — said insurance is a state regulatory responsibility and not the federal government’s.

“FIO is a duplicative federal bureaucracy whose existence hinders the efforts of state regulators better equipped to address the insurance needs of their communities,” Downing said. “I was proud to call for FIO’s abolishment as Montana State Auditor, and I gladly do it now as a congressman and member of the House Financial Services Committee.”

The text of the bill isn’t available yet but Downing’s bill addresses what Congress did with 1945’s McCarren-Ferguson Act. It clearly gave states the responsibility of regulating insurance.

PIA National CEO Mike Skiados said the PIA has been highly critical of the FIO, opposed its creation in the first place and was the first to call for it to be abolished. 

“PIA opposed the creation of the FIO from the outset,” Skiados said. “In November 2016, PIA became the first national insurance association to publicly call for the repeal of the FIO, and it remains among our top priorities, for good reason. The FIO’s duties are uniformly duplicative of existing offices in the federal government and/or the tasks delegated to state insurance commissioners.” 

He praised Rep. Downing for stepping forward and introducing this bill. 

“PIA thanks Rep. Troy Downing for his leadership in protecting the state insurance regulatory system,” Skiados added. “The proper place for the regulation of insurance is at the state level and the state regulation of insurance has served the insurance industry and consumers well for over one hundred years.”

Other associations feel the same way. Jim Grande is a senior vice president of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC). He said the FIO has often gone over and above its original charter.

“FIO has become a tool for political agendas, overreaching and creating confusion and burdensome costs for consumers, often just to duplicate the work of state insurance regulators,” Grande said.

Source link: Insurance Business America — https://bit.ly/42yTFCt