Quiet clout: much of the power in regulating and governing the insurance industry belongs to those who've never won an election or a cabinet-level appointment. (Regulation: The Big Picture).

The insurance business is not fully understood by many of those who are supposed to regulate it or make laws governing the industry. The nature of insurers' products, their accounting practices and their business processes make them an enigma to many officials--especially those for whom insurance is an incidental responsibility. But it's one they can't ignore, and in such an environment, knowledge becomes power.

That knowledge sometimes resides in unexpected places. While the public faces of insurance regulation include some true experts, their tenures tend to be short. The detailed knowledge often is found in the shadows, among the career regulators who've never won an election or a cabinet-level appointment. Their input can have a powerful influence on the laws and regulations that ultimately dictate how insurers conduct their business.

In Washington, for example, insurance regulation is a burden that ostensibly was handed over to the states via the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945. But the barrier has always been incomplete and porous, and insurance issues have continued to leak into the jurisdictions of reluctant federal officials. For insurers, the year-long debate over a federal terrorism backstop exemplified the industry's struggle to make itself understood in the nation's capital. It's an ideal environment for a knowledgeable hand in insurance to find a niche, feeding insight to lawmakers and regulators hungry for any information that can guide policy decisions.

Even at the state level, where whole departments are devoted to policing insurance, there's knowledge and there's deep knowledge. Rate filings and policy forms are complex enough, but the intricacies of insurance accounting-a world unto itself-call for a special level of expertise and create another niche where those in the know can carry considerable influence.

The profiles that follow don't present a definitive list of the most powerful backstage players in the industry. But based on Best's Review's research and input from a broad sampling of industry sources, these people represent the ranks of low-profile, but high-powered officials who labor just out of public view, wielding their quiet clout.