Shadow Insurance Committee to Meet October 25 to Review Catastrophe Insurance Financing & Redlining Issues

Washington, D.C., October 22, 1999 – The Shadow Insurance Regulation Committee will hold its second meeting of the year at 12 noon on October 25 at the office of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Formed to increase the awareness and understanding of the importance of private insurance, the Committee plans to issue statements of consensus involving catastrophe insurance financing and the insurance redlining debate. Other possible statements that the committee will consider involve such issues as after-market auto parts, building code enforcement and insurance price regulation, patients’ bill of rights legislation, and regulatory restructuring under proposed financial modernization legislation.

The Committee will examine several options for financing catastrophic risks, including tax-deferred treatment of insurers’ reserves (HR 2749), proposed federal reinsurance coverage (HR 21), and greater use of insurance securitization and other innovative financial instruments. In reviewing the insurance redlining issue, the committee members will examine whether industry practices are justified by risk and economic considerations, as well as whether efforts to improve access to insurance should focus on voluntary, market-based solutions or government sanctions and mandates.

The Committee consists of academic insurance experts who will meet periodically to discuss the problems facing private insurance and develop possible solutions. The members are:

  • James Garven, Louisiana State University College of Business Administration, and chairman of the Shadow Committee;

  • Neil Doherty, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania,

  • Martin Grace, Center for Risk Management and Insurance Research at Georgia State University;

  • Scott Harrington, College of Business Administration at the University of South Carolina;

  • Robert Klein, Center for Risk Management and Insurance Research at Georgia State University.

The purpose of the Committee is to examine current industry trends that concern the competitive operation of insurance markets, to evaluate and comment on policy responses to insurance problems, to draw greater attention to public policy issues in insurance regulation, and to help develop and recommend market-oriented policy initiatives that enhance insurance markets. The Committee will hold two public meetings each year to alert the media, policy makers, insurance officials, and insurance consumers to their findings.

CEI, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group founded in 1984, is dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about the Shadow Committee, contact Tom Miller, CEI director of economic policy studies, at 202-331-1010. CEI sponsors Shadow Committee activities, but the recommendations of the group are its own.