Insurance in the United States has traditionally been regulated by individual states. With the recent meltdown in the financial services industry, Congress is considering legislation to allow life insurers to operate under a federal charter, similar to the banking industry’s dual regulatory system that would allow companies to choose between the state system and a national regulatory structure. The life insurance industry has been pushing for federal legislation for years as they see the current state system as overly complex, anticompetitive and unduly burdensome in that it increases the cost of compliance and delays the launching of new products. A good article discussing this can be found at the Insurance Information Institute’s website...

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