Jersey Joins the Compact. So What?

Commentary January 07, 2011 at 02:58 PM
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A news item came in yesterday from the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission announcing that New Jersey had officially joined the Interstate Insurance Compact with a swift stroke of Governor Chris Christie's pen. This makes the Garden State the 38th jurisdiction to join the Compact, a group meant to streamline product filing standards for insurers operating within Compact states. With the inclusion of New Jersey, the Compact now represents just over two thirds of the nationwide premium volume for asset-based insurance products.

The Compact purports to bring the best of both worlds to consumers and insurers alike. By upholding a mutually agreed-to set of best practices, Compact states are becoming part of a de facto national standard of care for asset-based insurance products, which is good for consumers. It is also good for insurers, since the Compact is supposed to be, in its own words, a clearinghouse for prompt review of product filings. It preserves the states' sovereignty in regulating their own insurance markets, and yet is a national solution, as it covers the majority of the country.

At present, California, Connecticut, Delaware and the District of Columbia are all notable exceptions to the Compact. So are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota. The inclusion of both New York and Florida is pending. Illinois is in the Compact, but it's asking for time to comply with its standards. Personally, I'd like to know what's holding up California. One wonders if it's simply dropping the ball here or if it decided it handles things just fine on its own and is giving the Compact the cold shoulder. California is one of the few states that could do such a thing.

On a variety of fronts, there is much to cheer with the inclusion of Jersey into the Compact, since anything that improves product filing is bound to help the industry, which often is unable to bring products to market quite as quickly as it would like to. And for the proponents of state-based insurance regulation, this is yet another piece of evidence to show how the states get it right; on their own and without a guiding hand from Washington, the various jurisdictions are slowly aggregating into a single operating standard that, the more it homogenizes, the better it serves the entire industry.

And yet. The governance of the IIPRC is heavily weighted in favor of the premium volume of the states themselves, so it's hardly a truly representative form of government. According to the IIPRC's website, the group is run by its Management Committee, which is comprised of the six largest Compacting States by premium volume (Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas). It also includes four mid-sized states (Maryland Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin) as well as one state each from the IIPRC's four regional zones (Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Washington).

This leaves Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota,, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming off the Management Committee, and it makes one wonder if this method of governance is really about representing Compacting States in a manner that helps consumer and industry alike, or whether it's really about expediting what works best for the industry amid a backdrop of state-based regulation that is so addicted to premium taxes as a form of revenue that anything keeping the ball rolling is seen as a good thing.

That's a cynical outlook, I know, but what can I say? I'm, both a journalist and New Jersey resident, so some cynicism comes with the territory. And as a guy who busted his hump shoveling 30 inches of snow off my walk last month while Governor Christie flew to DisneyWorld on the day of the blizzard and Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno was cruising down in Mexico, you'll have to forgive me from accepting any proclamation of victory from Christie's office without rolling my eyes just a little.

But seriously, the Compact's expansion poses an interesting case study in the efficacy of the state-based regulatory model, which National Underwriter raised some questions over when we profiled the NAIC a few issues back. Yes, it's great that New Jersey is in the compact, and that New York and Florida soon will be. But what of California? What of the smaller Compact states that don't seem to have much of a voice in how the Compact is run? It all seems like a market-driven synergy between industry and governance that only works if and only if every single party has the best intentions. And frankly, in the business of both insurance and government, I have found this to be an impossibility. I wish it were otherwise.

One more reason, I suppose, to revisit how much good (and ill) the Federal Insurance Office can bring to the table if only it had full regulatory powers, rather than the ability to issue strongly worded reports. The FIO has signaled an intent to be a good watchdog, but from behind a fence, all it can do is bark while the rest of the pack does what it likes. And as long as long a the pack behaves, there won't be any reason for the big dogs to get involved. And by the time there is reason, well, that will be too late. But that is the way of regulation, I suppose. Better too little and too slow than too much and too fast.

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