Incorporating the New Domestic Political Paradigm into Financial Research: Insurance Focus

This PowerPoint report, presented by Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, before the annual meeting of the Financial Management Association, focuses on how reform of the financial services industry will affect insurers. The presentation shows that insurers will be impacted by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act mainly though provisions that deal with systemic risk and resolution authority through the imposition of heightened federal regulation on large bank holding companies and “systemically risky” nonbank financial companies, including insurers; the creation of a Federal Insurance Office (FIO) within the Department of Treasury, while maintaining state regulation of insurance; and new rules affecting surplus lines insurers and reinsurers. Sections of the presentation also look at critical distinctions between banks and insurers; financial strength/solvency performance trends; financial performance under crisis conditions; public opinion, crisis and perceptions of the insurance industry; insurance industry financial strength during the crisis; and the establishment of Solvency II in the European Union.