Consumer Advocates Claim Their Ideas Get Short Shrift.

Consumer advocates complained that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' working groups had not given enough timely consideration to their proposals.

"Your Gramm-Leach-Bliley working groups have rejected our principles without discussion," said J. Robert Hunter, insurance director at the Consumer Federation of America, at a meeting of the NAIC Funded Consumer Representatives. Hunter was particularly critical of the Speed-to-Market Working Group, which has worked furiously since the NAIC's fall meeting in September.

Hunter alleged that the working group had rushed its process and "ignored all consumer considerations." He also said that the subgroup agreed to industry requests not to make certain data available to the public. Consumer advocates say the data would help them to detect redlining.

Hunter said the consumer advocates, which are funded by the NAIC to participate, spent hundreds of hours on proposals "that went into a black hole." He also complained that the Speed-to-Market Working Group met excessively in executive sessions and called for an end to the practice.

Diane Koken, Pennsylvania's insurance commissioner and chair of the CARFRA subgroup, said its members believe consumers benefit when products go to market more quickly. "We'll welcome participation by consumer groups, but in the actual application of standards, there will be no input from the industry or consumers," she said.

Ohio Commissioner Lee Covington, speaking on the issue of executive sessions, pointed out that Hunter and Birney Birnbaum, who heads the Houston-based Center for Economic Justice, represented consumers and Sonya Larkin-Thorne of the American Insurance Association and Lenore Marema of the Alliance of American Insurers represented the industry in the subgroup sessions.