An official at the U.S. Treasury Department is giving up his post as a temporary shepherd for the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act program.[@@]
Gregory Zerzan, who is both the Treasury Department's acting assistant secretary for financial institutions and the TRIA program overseer, has turned in his resignation. He plans to leave the Treasury Department June 20.
Zerzan will be returning to his home state, Oregon, but he has not yet accepted a new job, according to a Treasury Department spokesman.
Zerzan began working for the Treasury Department in March 2003 as deputy assistant secretary for financial institutions policy. He assumed his current title in January, after his predecessor, Wayne Abernathy, stepped down.
Abernathy was best known for his work on government-sponsored mortgage guarantee programs, but Zerzan also inherited Abernathy's responsibility for the federal terrorism reinsurance program, which was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to protect insurers from terrorism-related disasters.
The TRIA program does not cover life and health insurers, but life insurers are asking the federal government to expand the program to include group life insurers.
Zerzan stuck to a carefully worded prepared version of his speech in March, when he spoke about the TRIA program in Washington at a regulatory reform conference. He avoided giving a substantive response when a representative from the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, told him that the Treasury Department should "consider the group life industry" when reviewing TRIA.
