MAYBE NOT.
This post updates a previous post here on December 21, 2008, "They Bet Your Life Insurance Reserves. And You Lost?" A postscript added to that post on January 12, 2009 reported that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners scheduled a Hearing for the end of January, 2009 on "emergency" measures proposed by several Life Insurance Companies requesting an expedited process from the NAIC to adopt their proposals. The issue behind all of the proposed measures was whether to immediately loosen the Reserves requirements imposed by the States on Life Insurance Companies. The change would have allowed the Life Insurance Companies to operate immediately, and to report their impending results from 2008, with fewer Reserves than were previously required (and are still required, now).
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners executive committee reportedly scotched this idea. In an NAIC Hearing held on Thursday, January 29, 2009 the linked proposals were all voted down in a "nearly unanimous vote" of the NAIC executive committee; only one (1) State Insurance Commissioner voted in favor of the Life Insurance Companies' proposals. The majority of State Insurance Commissioners included the New Hampshire Insurance Commissioner, who issued this statement after the NAIC executive committee vote:
Simply put, the [Life Insurance] industry has not made a credible case for why we need to make changes on an emergency basis, and why those changes should be limited to the specific proposals made by the industry.
One newspaper described the Life Insurance Company's defeated proposals "as a cashless bailout. They would have changed the way companies and regulators measure life insurers' financial strength, making them look healthier than they otherwise would appear." David S. Hilzenrath, "Relief Denied For Life Insurers/Industry Must Keep Financial Cushion" (Washington Post.com, Friday, January 30, 2009).
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