NAIC Meeting Roundup 

The Life and Health Actuarial Task Force is moving to make the Standard Valuation Law compatible with a “principles-based” approach to valuations.

LHATF met Thursday and Friday at the summer meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., in Minneapolis.

Task force members talked about topics such as developments in international accounting and a collection of capital and surplus relief proposals.

Task force members approved several of the recommendations, including adoption of a model regulation permitting use of preferred mortality tables in reserve liability determinations and a life insurance policy valuation model regulation.

Task force members also adopted a revision to the Standard Valuation Law.

Advocates of a principles-based approach to valuations want to promote use of actuarial judgment and modern statistical forecasting methods, and away from reliance on static formulas.

Adoption of the SVL revision was seen as a move to continue support for the principles-based approach to insurance regulation, despite a fear that the financial crisis might be slowing any effort that even appears to be lightening financial services companies’ regulatory burden.

The task force has approved implementing the framework of a valuation manual as well as adopting a principles-based approach to the SVL.

In other NAIC meeting news:

- The Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission has named Karen Schutter to be the IIPRC executive director. Schutter has been the interim executive director since December 2008, and she has been involved in IIPR efforts since 2006.

She has a bachelor’s degree from Creighton University and a law degree from the University of Kansas.

The previous IIPRC executive director, Frances Arricale, left to become an executive at New York Life Insurance Company, New York.

- The Regulatory Framework Task Force discussed a draft of a survey that will ask health insurers about policy rescissions and preexisting condition exclusion decisions. The task force hopes to send questionnaires out in July and get responses in time for the NAIC’s fall meeting.

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