Brookings Institute

  • 1992 - Brookings - Back to basics: solvency as the primary object of insurance industry regulation, Bob Litan - <WishList>
  • 2008 - Brookings - The Origins of the Financial Crisis, Martin Neil Baily, Robert E. Litan, and Matthew S. Johnson - 47p
  • 2009 0506 - GOV (Senate) - Regulation and Resolving Institutions Considered "Too Big to Fail", Christopher Dodd (D-CT)  ---  [BonkNote]
  • 2021 06 - Brookings - Task Force on Financial Stability, by Glenn Hubbard, Donald Kohn, Ralph Koijen, Blythe Masters - 135p
  • (p93) - Large troubled life insurers can also generate systemic risks if policyholders run to cash out their life insurance policies, or if the millions of retirees who rely on annuities suddenly learn that their contracts may not be honored sharply curtail their spending as a result. 

--  Prepared Statement of Martin Neil Baily Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, and Former Chairman Of The Council Of Economic Advisers Under President Clinton, and Robert E. Litan1 May 6, 2009

2009 0506 - GOV (Senate) - Regulation and Resolving Institutions Considered "Too Big to Fail", Christopher Dodd (D-CT)  ---  [BonkNote]

  • 2021 06 - Brookings - Task Force on Financial Stability, by Glenn Hubbard, Donald Kohn, Ralph Koijen, Blythe Masters - 135p
    • (p53) - The life insurance sector, while safe and quite boring in the past, has changed meaningfully during the past two decades from a financial stability perspective.
      • The Global Financial Crisis showed that the life insurance industry has  become fragile.
        • This fragility was not limited to AIG. Some other companies received Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) support (for example, Hartford Financial Services Group received $3.4 billion in TARP equity).
    • (p53) - Although the industry and its regulators responded to some extent to the problems that became evident in 2008, the fragility of the life insurance sector appears to persist.
      • The first important factor is...
    • Captive reinsurance, or “shadow insurance,” has also increased the opacity of the industry.
    • Shadow insurance developed in response to regulatory changes in 2000 and 2003 for term and universal life insurance, known as “Regulations XXX and AXXX.”**
    • These regulations tightened the regulatory capital requirements for these traditional products—for operating companies, which sell directly to consumers, but not for reinsurance companies.