Insurance Perspectives on Federal Financial Regulatory Reform: Addressing Misunderstandings and Providing View from Different Paradigm

Much of the current call for Federal regulatory reform of insurance is based on fundamental misunderstandings regarding American International Group (AIG) and the financial crisis, and because insurance, which is regulated predominately at the state level, provides a different, and potentially useful, regulatory paradigm. The first section of this article will analyze the role of insurance in the financial crisis. It exposes the misunderstandings and explain how insurance had little, if any, role in the crisis. The second section outlines the current, state-based regulatory paradigm for insurance, and will explain how this paradigm has become a barrier for Federal reform in the insurance area. The final section addresses the powerful role played by the courts in insurance regulation, and will suggest that financial regulatory reform could benefit from use of a similar model for other financial services