OCC Convinces More States To Share Consumer Feedback.

Illinois, Iowa, Mississippi and the District of Columbia have been added to the roster of states signing separate agreements to share consumer complaints with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Twenty-three jurisdictions have signed the agreement with the OCC, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Under these agreements, when a consumer has a complaint about an insurance product sold by a national bank, the OCC will forward that complaint to the appropriate state insurance department. The state insurance department will forward any complaint it receives about a national bank to the OCC, said George Nichols III, Kentucky insurance commissioner and president of the NAIC.

Nichols called the agreements "formal recognition of functional regulation by the OCC and state regulators."

The agreement calls for the OCC and each state's insurance department to forward information relating to the complaint as soon as practical, and calls for the "confidentiality of all information...to the fullest extent possible," the NAIC said.

Communication between the state and federal regulators also is called for on matters of common interest, such as regulatory and policy initiatives and educational efforts pertaining to insurance sales by national banking companies, the NAIC said. The agreement does not change or expand the jurisdictions of the federal and state regulators.

The following states also have signed complaint-sharing agreements: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, Vermont, and West Virginia, the NAIC stated.