On December 9, 2011, the Federal Office of Insurance (“FIO”) held its first meeting at the U.S. Department of Treasury, entitled “Insurance Regulation in the United States: Modernization and Improvement.”  The conference was attended by insurance regulators and industry representatives.  The meeting precedes a report due January 2012 as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”).  The report is widely anticipated as an insight into how the FIO plans to use its authority.

A clear message at the meeting:  the role of the FIO should be informational and yield to state regulation.  As Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin told the crowd of about 200, “It is not the role of the FIO to regulate the insurance industry. That job belongs to the states.”  State regulators will be important partners to the U.S. Treasury Department as the Federal Insurance Office moves forward on its work, said the Deputy Treasury Secretary, adding that “nothing in the Dodd-Frank Act alters the fact that insurance is fundamentally regulated by the states.”

This conference comes amidst a series of almost 40 meetings with insurance regulators, trade associations, and consumer groups the head of the FIO, Michael McRaith, is having that will also help shape the mandated report due in January 2012.