Dr. Theresa "Terri" Vaughan has announced her retirement, effective in February, as chief executive officer of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. She made her announcement at the plenary session that marked the end of the NAIC summer meeting in Atlanta, last month.
Diane Koken, Pennsylvania's longest-serving insurance commissioner before stepping down in 2007, is expected to be named to succeed her.
Vaughan would be stepping down after completing her four-year term as the first NAIC CEO.
Ms. Koken was the face of the NAIC as president in 2005 when Reps. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, chairman, and Richard Baker, R- La., the chairman and head of the key Capital Markets Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, proposed legislation dealing with an expanded role for federal regulation of insurance.
The bill was called the State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act. A number of hearings were held on the legislation, and there was much debate both inside and outside of Congress on the bill. The bill was never formally introduced, and died when Democrats took control of the Congress in late 2006. Both Oxley and Baker left Congress before the Obama administration took control in 2009.
Vaughan headed the NAIC during a period when the insurance industry endured the fallout from the mortgage housing bubble in general and the takeover of the nearly-insolvent American International Group.
