Insurers Skeptical About Second Data Call

By Jim Connolly

June 13, 2003 at 08:00 PM

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NU Online News Service, June 13, 2003, 5:03 p.m. EDT – Insurers want state regulators to analyze information they already have collected for a market conduct data analysis project before issuing a second data call.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., is working on the project in conjunction with work on developing a market conduct annual statement.

Regulators expect the issue to come up later in June at the NAIC's summer meeting.

Birny Birnbaum, executive director of the Center for Economic Justice, Austin, Texas, says extending the data call project another year would be valuable because looking at data over time would make it easier to check the quality of the data collected.

To ensure the quality of the data, regulators need a collection period lasting two to three years, not just a six-month data call, Birnbaum says.

But Linda Lanam, deputy general counsel at the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, is asking regulators to explain how the data analysis project is making regulation better for either the regulators or the companies that they regulate.

"That is what we haven't seen yet," Lanam says.

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