RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, regulation, oversight, and consumer protection have traditionally and historically been powers reserved to state governments under the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945; and

WHEREAS, state legislatures are more responsive to the needs of their constituents and the need for insurance products and regulation to meet their state’s unique market demands; and

WHEREAS, many states, including Hawaii, have recently enacted and amended state insurance laws to modernize market regulation and provide insurers with greater ability to respond to changes in market conditions; and

WHEREAS, state legislatures, the National Conference of Insurance Legislators, and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners continue to address uniformity issues between states by the adoption of model laws that address market conduct, product approval, agent licensing, and rate deregulation; and

WHEREAS, initiatives are being contemplated by certain members of the United States Congress that would destroy the state system of insurance regulation and create unwieldy and inaccessible federal bureaucracies--all without consumer demand; and

WHEREAS, many state governments derive general revenue dollars from the regulation of the business of insurance, including $83,077,514 from premium taxes generated in fiscal year 2005-2006 by the State of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, these initiatives would eventually draw premium tax revenue from the states; and

WHEREAS, such initiatives include optional federal charter proposals that would bifurcate insurance regulation and allow companies to evade important state consumer protections and the

State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act, which would create mandatory federal insurance standards preempting state law; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2006, the Senate concurring, that the Hawaii Legislature expresses its strong opposition to federal legislation that would threaten the power of state legislatures, governors, insurance commissioners, and attorneys general to oversee, regulate, and investigate the business of insurance, and to protect consumers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to members of Hawaii's Congressional delegation, the United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Report Title:

Insurance; Opposing Preemptive Federal Insurance Laws