CFPB - Consumer Finance Protection Bureau

  • Dodd-Frank
  • Richard Cordray
  • Elizabeth Warren
  • 2009 0624 - GOV (House) - Regulatory Restructuring: Enhancing Consumer Financial Products Regulation, Barney Frank (D-MA)
    • [PDF-286p, VIDEO-?]
    • (p56) - Gary Hughes (ACLI) - So why don’t we support placing insurance products under the jurisdiction of an agency like the CFPA? (CFPB - Consumer Finance Protection Bureau)
    • House - Committee on Financial Services
  • 2021 01 - CFPB - Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law Report: Volume I - 800p
    • These funding sources for finance companies are the ones that obtain the funds from households.
      • Life insurance companies gather premiums from many policy holders and often lend the proceeds to other intermediaries in financial markets, including consumer finance companies that lend directly to individuals.
      • Pension funds that obtain retirement savings from individuals or their employers also lend to other lenders such as consumer finance companies.
    • (p727) - Approximately 20 percent of those who unable to cover three months of expenses out of their liquid savings actually have sufficient assets in “quasi-liquid” accounts such as retirement plans, certificates of deposit or savings bonds, or
      cash-value life insurance accounts.278

      • 277 See Neil Bhutta and Lisa Dettling, Money in the Bank? Assessing Families’ Liquid Savings Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, FEDS Notes (Nov. 19, 2018), available in https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/fedsnotes/assessing-families-liquid-savings-using-the-survey-of-consumer-finances-20181119.htm.
      • 278 Bhutta and Dettling, supra note 277.
  • Unreasonable Advantage of Consumers vs Reasonable Advantage of Consumers
  • 2012 0124 - GOV (House) - How Will the CFPB Function Under Richard Cordray, Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
    • [PDF-107p, VIDEO-CSPAN 
    • 1:59 - Trey Gowdy (R-SC):  Senator Warren never answered the question.  Dodd-Frank - Unreasonable Advantage of Consumers - Duties of Consumers in regard to Educating themselves
    • 2:00 - Richard Cordray, CFPB, Educate yourself, High School, People have to be Responsible for their decisions, what we can do it make clear / transparent, if they make a bad deal... they'll have to live with it... nobody is going to make a magic wand.
    • Trey Gowdy (R-SC): note that he has answered the question.
  • 2016 05 - ban on mandatory arbitration /arbitration rule
  • (p17) - Susan Voss (IA-Insurance Commissioner / NAIC President) - I would say that one of the positives that has come out of the whole Dodd-Frank debate was reaching out to Federal regulators to share information.
    • And I have to say, we have struck a very good conversation with Chairman Schapiro from the SEC about consumer issues.
      • And whenever we are in Washington, we always reach out to her and her staff.
      • And we actually have regular dialogues.
      • The Federal Reserve comes to our meetings.
    • So I think as far as consumer protection, I would agree that this new body does not have authority over insurance.
    • But we are reaching out to talk to Federal regulators on a regular basis about consumer issues.
    • Because we know that people who are buying insurance products may be interested in securities products and other financial instruments.
    • And for us to at least have regular dialogue with them is very helpful in the interchange of information.
  • Robert Hurt (R-VA).  Madam Chairwoman, do you see any basis for future expansion of the CFPB’s footprint into insurance absent legislation by the United States Congress?
  • Susan Voss. - I don’t think so. I hope not. 

2011 0728 and 1025 - GOV (House) - Insurance Oversight: Policy Implications for U.S. Consumers, Businesses and Jobs - Part 1 (2011 0728), Part 2 (2011 1025) - [PDF-285p, VIDEO-?] 

  • 2015 - CFPB - LC - In the Matter of Civil Investigative Demand Issued to Assurant, Inc. - 78p
    • In creating the Bureau, Congress took special care to ensure that the Bureau had no enforcement authority over the business of insurance, including the writing, valuing, marketing, sale, and servicing of insurance or reinsurance.  (p11)
    • Specifically, the Act <Dodd-Frank> imposes two material limitations on the Bureau’s authority:
    • First, the Act defines the term “financial product or service” to exclude “the business of insurance.” Id. § 5481(15)(C).
      • “The term ‘business of insurance’ means the writing of insurance or the reinsuring of risks by an insurer, including all acts necessary to such writing or reinsuring and the activities relating to the writing of insurance or the reinsuring of risks conducted by persons who act as, or are, officers, directors, agents, or employees of insurers or who are other persons authorized to act on behalf of such persons.” Id. § 5481(3).
      • To prevent the Bureau from circumventing this broad exclusion, the Act specifically prohibits the Bureau from using its rulemaking authority to “define as a financial product or service, by regulation or otherwise, engaging in the business of insurance.” Id. § 5517(m)
    • Second, the Dodd-Frank Act prohibits the Bureau from exercising enforcement authority over a “person regulated by a State insurance regulator.”
      • “The term ‘person regulated by a State insurance regulator’ means any person that is engaged in the business of insurance and subject to regulation by any State insurance regulator, but only to the extent that such person acts in such capacity.” Id. § 5481(23). 
      • Except where “such person is engaged in the offering or provision of any consumer financial product or service or is otherwise subject to any enumerated consumer law or any law for which authorities are transferred under subtitle F or H,” id. § 5517(f)(2), “the Bureau shall have no authority to exercise any power to enforce [U.S.C. title 12, “Banks and Banking,”] with respect to a person regulated by a State insurance regulator.” Id. § 5517(f)(1).
  • (p17) - Robert Hurt - (R-VA)
    • I would like to confirm probably with each of you—Ms. Warren, as the CFPB is taking shape, has stated that she believes that insurance does not fall within the jurisdiction of the CFPB.
    • Do you agree with that assessment as the law currently is, and do you see any basis in the future?  And we know how Washington operates and how bureaucrats operate.
    • Do you see any basis in the future for expanding that authority within the CFPB absent explicit legislation from the United States Congress?
    • I will start with Mr. Huff, and then Ms. Voss, and Mr. Wren
  • John Huff (Insurance Commissioner - MO)
    • I agree with your conclusion that insurance is not included in the agency’s jurisdiction. 
    • And to be fair to insurers, not all of those queries are complaints.
    • They are really an opportunity for us to have an education process.
    • Many times, they are more inquiries of how a product works, what did I buy?
  •  Greg Wren (State Representative, Alabama House of Representatives, and Treasurer, the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL), on behalf of NCOIL)
    • Congressman, I would like to say that NCOIL, in collaboration with this committee and the Congress, has strongly encouraged the insurance component to be left out.

2011 0728 and 1025 - GOV (House) - Insurance Oversight: Policy Implications for U.S. Consumers, Businesses and Jobs - Part 1 (2011 0728), Part 2 (2011 1025) - [PDF-285p, VIDEO-?]