Dear Editor:
The passing of U.S. Rep. John Dingell reminded me of the impact he had on CAS members nearly 30 years ago. In “Failed Promises,” his U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee report (reported in the Los Angeles Times), he sharply criticized insurance regulation and — not for the first time — both the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and individual state regulators. He thought that federal regulation was inevitable unless state regulators made dramatic changes. The American Academy of Actuaries gave input to Dingell’s committee. Among other things, Dingell’s report recommended more reliance on actuarial opinions on loss reserves (thank you, AAA) and the NAIC moved quickly to add a requirement for a statement of actuarial opinion to the Annual Statement. Before the Dingell report came out, several states such as New York and California, among others, already had the SAO requirement and smaller states were concerned that they might not be able to hire actuaries to review newly required SAOs. I don’t need to tell you that actuaries would have a lot less work to do if SAOs weren’t mandatory. So, thank you, John Dingell.
—Anne Kelly, FCAS, MAAA
