On April 13, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued guidance to its regulated institutions on how to manage cyber-risks connected to remote working, amid a “significant” increase in cybercrime...more
In what is apparently the first provision of its kind in the nation, on March 12, Wyoming amended its insurance code to expressly allow domestic insurers to invest in “digital assets.” ...more
On March 22, federal banking regulators, including the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the...more
On March 22, federal banking regulators, including the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the...more
The news that A.M. Best is developing stress testing to gauge the impact of COVID-19 on insurers is a timely reminder of the various regulatory capital and reserving regimes under which such exposure could be measured. In...more
Insurance carriers will find the following topics, recently discussed at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), relevant to capital management, financial risk, solvency and similar “prudential” issues,...more
12/11/2019
/ Business Transfer Agreements ,
Capital Assets ,
Capital Requirements ,
Derivatives ,
Financial Solvency ,
Health Insurance ,
IAIS ,
Insurance Regulations ,
NAIC ,
Net Investment Income ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Reinsurance ,
Risk Management
In a previous issue of FundsTalk, we discussed collateralized fund obligations (CFOs), investments backed by portfolios of private investment fund interests. In recent months, the National Association of Insurance...more
11/4/2019
/ CFOs ,
Consumer Insurance Products ,
Debt Instruments ,
Equity ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Investment ,
Investment Portfolios ,
NAIC ,
Private Investment Funds ,
Public Comment ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Working Groups
Banks, insurers and other financial services companies, as well as other companies holding unclaimed property, are automatically liable for interest that accrues on unclaimed property held by them in New York, without having...more
10/21/2019
/ Abandoned Property ,
Appeals ,
Comptroller ,
Escheat ,
Failure To Pay ,
Fraud ,
Interest Accrual ,
JPMorgan Chase ,
Property Owners ,
Representations and Warranties ,
State and Local Government ,
State False Claims Acts ,
Unclaimed Property ,
Whistleblowers
Insurers that own depository institutions (DIs), mainly mutual insurers owning savings and loans (S&Ls), have been waiting since the 2010 adoption of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act for specific...more
With M&A activity for life insurers or blocks of in-force business poised for a possible spike, acquirers of life businesses should consider factors that are peculiar to, or disproportionately affect, the life and annuity...more
9/9/2019
/ Annuities ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Best Interest Standard ,
Captive Insurance Company ,
Collateral ,
Consumer Insurance Products ,
Insurance Regulations ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Life Insurance ,
NYDFS ,
Private Funds ,
Property Casualty Policies ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Reinsurance ,
Variable Annuities
On Aug. 20, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (the FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the OCC) approved amendments to the Volcker Rule, which restricts banking entities’ ability to engage in...more
The New York Department of Financial Services’ (DFS) January 2019 insurance circular letter, which advised New York-licensed life insurance carriers on the use of external consumer data and information sources in...more
8/1/2019
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Consumer Insurance Products ,
Cooperative Compliance Regime ,
Customer Information ,
Data Management ,
Discrimination ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Insurance Regulations ,
Life Insurance ,
New Guidance ,
NYDFS ,
Predictive Analytics ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Transparency ,
Underwriting
On a May 15 conference call, the Reinsurance Task Force of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) advanced model legislation on reciprocal treatment for reinsurers as between the United States, on the one...more
Legislation proposed in the Maryland Senate (Senate Bill 786, introduced on Feb. 4, 2019) would impose fiduciary duties on insurance producers, such as agents and brokers, that are subject to licensure in the state....more
On Dec. 18, 2018, the Trump Administration signed a bilateral agreement on prudential insurance matters between the United States and the United Kingdom (the U.S.-U.K. Covered Agreement)....more
1/3/2019
/ Consumer Insurance Products ,
Covered Agreement ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Insurance Claims ,
Insurance Regulations ,
Prompt Payment ,
Prudential Standards ,
Reciprocity Rules ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Reinsurance ,
U.S. Treasury ,
UK ,
UK Brexit ,
US-EU Covered Agreement
On July 17, the five main federal financial regulatory bodies — the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Commodities...more
8/2/2018
/ Comment Period ,
Covered Banking Entity ,
Covered Funds ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Proprietary Trading ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Volcker Rule
Recent efforts by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), the principal standard-setting body for insurance regulation in the U.S., to establish a “group capital” standard (that is, capital-adequacy rules...more
On March 7, 2018, the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services heard testimony on the issue of duplicative regulation of insurers that are also savings and loan...more
The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) recently released its long-awaited review of the determination and designation processes of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), created under the Dodd-Frank Wall...more
On Oct. 26, 2017, the U.S. Treasury Department (Treasury) released the latest installment in a series of reports on financial regulation required by the president’s Feb. 3 executive order on the financial system....more
12/1/2017
/ Asset Management ,
Capital Markets ,
CFTC ,
Commodity Pool ,
Dodd-Frank ,
ETFs ,
Executive Orders ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Insurance Industry ,
Investment Funds ,
Liquidity Risk Management Rule ,
Stress Tests ,
Trump Administration ,
U.S. Treasury ,
Volcker Rule
We are seeing Interval Alts (registered investment funds featuring hedge fund-like liquidity) being used for dedicated insurance-linked securities (ILS) strategies. ILS, such as catastrophe, or "cat," bonds, provide...more
At the recent National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Summer National Meeting held in Philadelphia from August 6, 2017, to August 9, 2017, the NAIC continued its work on group capital calculation standards,...more
Our two-part article on non-con and true sale issues in insurance contexts continues with a deeper dive into the considerations that distinguish these issues from similar remoteness principles in a Bankruptcy Code context. In...more
This two-part article discusses the key concerns, from a non-consolidation and true sale perspective, that arise when an insurance company, as opposed to a bankruptcy-eligible entity, is a sponsor/seller in a securitization...more
The federal government, state insurance regulators and international regulatory bodies are all actively engaged in the development of capital standard calculations to be employed in the supervision of entities in their...more