Government Hearings – 2018

  • 2018 0307 – GOV (House) – Legislative Review of H.R. 5059: The State Insurance Regulation Preservation Act 
    • [PDF-86p, VIDEO-YouTube-1:48:37] – <mp3, mp4>
    • Chair – Duffy – State Insurance Regulation Preservation Act.  Rothfus, 
    • Ross (FL) v Schwarcz
    • Testimony – Daniel Schwarcz – 16p
    • 27:00 – Ross – Dodd-Frank, State Based Regulation
    • 43:45 – Schwarcz – Opening 5 minutes
      • Insurance Savings and Loan Holding Company, arbitrage, less stringently regulated, creates new, Dodd-Frank, -Primary reason AIG failed was the failure of the OTS to perform group level oversight.  States haven’t done group supervision…maybe until 2008.
    • 58:15 – to Duffy. More important point. Intent of bill vs effect of the bill.  savings and loan holding company – definition (p2).  Example: JP Morgan.  …there’s a problem, but this isn’t the solution.
    • 1:04:30 – Ross v Schwarcz
      • Schwarcz: yeah, okay, great. 
      • Ross: Are you demeaning the State Regulators?
    • 1:28 – 2 different business models – Banking and Insurance – Congressman Luetkemeyer (MO)
    • 1:34 – Schwarcz – I wouldn’t forget about the Securities Lending
    • 1:48 – Schwarcz / McCarther – SIFI’s, Feds role, before 2008 Savings and Loans holdings companies had a federal regulator.  OCC. Costs and Benefits.
    • House – Committee on Financial Services – Housing and Insurance
  • 2018 0425 – GOV (House) – Review of VAs Life Insurance Programs, Mike Bost (R-IL)- 34p
    • House – Committee on Veterans Affairs – Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs
    • … I want to express my disappointment that the DoD decided not to participate in today’s hearing.
      • This is the second time that the DoD has refused to testify at one of our Subcommittee hearings and I am hoping that this does not become a customary response from DoD.
      • For this hearing, I invited DoD to provide views on high rate of denials for TSGLI claims and I am frustrated because I wanted the department to explain why the Armed Services denied 44 percent of TSGLI claims in fiscal year 2017.
        • This denial rate could be due to any number of factors, such as applications not being eligible for-applicants not being eligible for the benefits.
      • However, we don’t know whether this is the reason.
      • I was hoping the DoD would provide insight as to whether the servicemembers may not understand the TSGLI requirements or if they may be inadvertently filing improper claims, or are the Armed Services incorrectly denying benefits that servicemembers are paying for?
      • DoD’s expertise would certainly have been helpful here today as we consider these programs and any improvements to them.