Baird Webel

  • 2009 0514 - GOV (House) - How Should the Federal Government Oversee Insurance?, Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)  ---  [BonkNote]
  • 2009 0728 - GOV (Senate) - Regulatory Modernization: Perspectives on Insurance - [PDF-125p,
  • 2011 0914 - GOV (Senate-Banking/SII) - Emerging Issues in Insurance Regulation, Jack Reed (D-RI)  ---  [BonkNote]  
    • Baird Webel, Specialist in Financial Economics, Congressional Research Service - 14p
  • 2011 0319 - GOV (Senate) - Streamlining Regulation, Improving Consumer Protection and Increasing
    • Baird Webel, Specialist in Financial Economics, Congressional Research Service - Competition in Insurance Markets - 12p
  • (p12) - 3:30 -  Baird Webel, CRS - What is Systemic Risk?
    • So is an Asteroid a financial Risk?  What does a Systemic Risk Regulator have to do about this? Who would represent the Insurance Industry on a systemic risk panel?
    • [Bonk: 1950 1208 - NYT - Life Concerns Gird Against Atom Risk - [link]]

2009 0514 - GOV (House) - How Should the Federal Government Oversee Insurance?, Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)  ---  [BonkNote]

  • The recent crisis, however, has brought a different sort of run on financial institutions, namely the withdrawal of short term credit and demand from other counterparties for collateral payments.
  • Such a “run” brought AIG down and other insurers might be vulnerable, although none have failed since AIG.

--   Baird Webel, Specialist in Financial Economics (Congressional Research Service

2009 0728 - GOV (Senate) - Regulatory Modernization: Perspectives on Insurance - [PDF-125p,

  • (p4) - The first has to do with the oversight of insurers, particularly from a systemic risk perspective.
    • Historically, insurers have always been seen as presenting very low systemic risk, and the regulatory system reflected that.
  • The financial crisis, however, very much challenged this view both with the specific failure of AIG and the failures of the smaller bond insurers.
  • And the question that we really faced since then is:
    • Were these failures one-off events that were caused by a specific characteristic of the insurers?
    • Or should these failures really cause us to challenge our previous view that insurers did not present systemic risk?  
  • (p4) - The other issue I think I would like to highlight is what I have termed ‘‘the convergence of financial products,’’...
  • If you look at the economic characteristics of these things, they are pretty similar.
    • But one is produced largely by securities firms, or at least as a securities product under securities rules.
    • The other is an insurance product, and it is regulated by States.
  • The content of that regulation can be very different, and when you look at it in the crisis, I think the outcome can be very different between this different content of regulation. This has happened in several other areas as well. 

--  Statement of Baird Webel, Specialist In Financial Economics, Congressional Research Service

2011 0914 - GOV (Senate-Banking/SII) - Emerging Issues in Insurance Regulation, Jack Reed (D-RI)  ---  [BonkNote]  

  • (p23) - Well, I think that—as you said, what happened is they moved from municipal securities into mortgage-backed securities, thinking that since, among other things, housing prices had never gone down in the United States, it should not be a problem.
    • To a large degree it has really been the market response that has taken care of the problem in the sense that people are not really trusting the financial guarantee insurers anymore.
    • I think it is questionable whether the market needs this kind of guarantee insurance or whether it was just sort of a historical accident that it still existed. 

--  Baird Webel, CRS, Specialist in Financial Economics, Congressional Research Service 

2011 0914 - GOV (Senate-Banking/SII) - Emerging Issues in Insurance Regulation, Jack Reed (D-RI)  ---  [BonkNote]