Members of the National Association of Insurance Regulators (NAIC) have elected Eric Cioppa to be their 2019 president.
Cioppa is the Maine insurance superintendent. He'll succeed Julie Mix McPeak of Tennessee as the NAIC president Jan. 1.
Commissioners cast their votes Sunday, at the NAIC's fall national meeting in San Francisco.
NAIC members also elected Raymond Farmer, the South Carolina insurance director, to be president-elect; Gordon Ito, the Hawaii insurance commissioner, to be vice president; and Dean Cameron, the Idaho insurance director, to be the secretary-treasurer.
All four of the commissioners were appointed to their posts, rather than elected. Ito was appointed by a Democratic governor. The other NAIC officers were appointed by Republican governors.
The NAIC
The NAIC is a Kansas City, Missouri-based group for insurance regulators.
It has no direct authority of its own to change state insurance laws and regulations, but states often look to it for ideas about how to proceed. It also helps state insurance regulators communicate with Congress, and with financial services regulators in the United States and outside the United States.
As president of the NAIC, Cioppa will be one of the key players in efforts to shore up and replace the current Affordable Care Act health insurance framework, and in efforts to update standards for the sale of annuities and other insurance-based income planning products.