Our purported insurance regulator, Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart, is instead trying to run interference for Met Life. Check out this article from the state government website: fer cryin’ out loud:
DOVER, DE – In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other federal regulators, Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart has urged them to reconsider their vote to propose that MetLife be labeled as a “systemically important financial institution” (SIFI) and therefore subject to tougher federal regulation. “Based on my experience as an insurance regulator (insert joke here), and a regulator of one of MetLife’s larger insurance subsidiaries, I do not believe that MetLife’s businesses and corporate structure create the kind of systemic risk that Dodd-Frank’s SIFI designation process was designed to address,” she said. Stewart argues explicitly against the designation of MetLife and said state regulators are capable and competent to continue the oversight of the company (insert joke here).
Last month MetLife announced that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), led by Secretary Lew, had made a “proposed determination” that MetLife should be designated a nonbank SIFI under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Under this law, the FSOC was given the power to designate financial firms whose failure would jeopardize the financial stability of the United States and label them SIFIs. “As the MetLife group does not engage in any significant non-insurance activities, let alone activities that would create systemic risk, another layer of oversight over MetLife’s activities is redundant, unnecessary and will only serve to impede the quality of service MetLife provides to its customers and the value it delivers to its shareholders,” said Stewart.
Even if Stewart could somehow make the case that Met Life’s ‘quality of service’ would somehow be impeded by more stringent oversight, which she can’t, why is a regulator who has screwed up pretty much everything *cough* BC/BS/Highmark *cough* so danged concerned about it? That, folks, is what is known as a rhetorical question. She’s in thrall to the insurance industry that underwrites her election. She once again demonstrates that, just how Carper’s key constituency is the banks, not people, so too is KWS’ constituency the insurance companies she’s supposed to regulate, not people. Which reminds me, when, if ever, has she written a letter on behalf of insurance company consumers as opposed to insurance companies?
The press release is exceedingly well-crafted, but the fact that Stewart views this as a good thing says all you need to know about who runs the IC’s office: the insurance companies.
Read the letter in its entirety. Safe to say she’s got a job on Met Life’s payroll whenever she retires or the voters retire her.
BTW, this piece came from a tip to DL. Keep ’em coming, and thanks to the tipster.