80R16026 AKR-D
 
  By: Averitt S.C.R. No. 60
 
 
 
   
 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
       WHEREAS, State insurance regulators have ensured the
solvency of this nation's insurers, implemented a comprehensive
consumer protection scheme, licensed insurance companies and
agents, and supervised other areas of the insurance business for
over 150 years; and
       WHEREAS, State regulators oversee thousands of insurance
companies and millions of agents and respond to more than three
million inquiries per year; and
       WHEREAS, State insurance regulation has been largely
successful and effective, has adapted to changes in the
marketplace, and encourages innovation; and
       WHEREAS, State legislatures and state insurance regulators
are more responsive to the needs of consumers and are more aware of
and responsive to the unique characteristics and demands of
individual states; and
       WHEREAS, Many states, including Texas, regularly update
state insurance laws and have recently enacted legislation that
enables the insurance industry to more effectively respond to
changing market conditions; and
       WHEREAS, Governors, state legislators, and insurance
commissioners have acknowledged the need to streamline and simplify
insurance regulation and are working to enact reforms to remedy the
unnecessary differences in state laws and eliminate requirements
that prevent insurers and agents from serving the needs of
insurance consumers in an effective and timely manner; and
       WHEREAS, The 109th Congress considered and the 110th Congress
is expected to consider legislation that would establish an
entirely new insurance regulatory system at the federal level and
threaten the continued viability of the state system in the
process; and
       WHEREAS, A new and untested federal insurance regulatory
system would almost certainly be more remote and politicized and
less accessible and responsive to consumers than the current state
system; and
       WHEREAS, If enacted by congress, these proposals would
bifurcate insurance regulation between the states and the federal
government, conflicting with the state system of consumer
protections and financial surveillance, as well as inevitably
causing a loss of jobs, taxes, fees, and other vital and necessary
state revenues needed to effectively regulate the insurance market
and provide revenues to support residual market programs; and
       WHEREAS, Insurance companies paid $13.8 billion in annual
premium taxes to the states in 2004, and a federalization of
insurance regulation could put these payments and other fees and
revenues at risk; now, therefore, be it
       RESOLVED, That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby respectfully declare to the Congress of the United States
the legislature's commitment to maintaining the states as the sole
regulators of the business of insurance and to supporting state
efforts to streamline, simplify, and modernize insurance
regulation; and, be it further
       RESOLVED, That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to
oppose any proposed law that would establish a federal insurance
regulatory system or otherwise alter the McCarran-Ferguson Act;
and, be it further
       RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, the
speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the
senate of the United States Congress, to the members of the U.S.
House Financial Services Committee, to the members of the U.S.
House Banking Committee, to the U.S. secretary of the treasury, and
to all the members of the Texas delegation to the congress with the
request that this resolution be officially entered in the
Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United
States of America.