A consulting group found that FINRA’s estimate of the cost to create and manage a self-regulatory organization (SRO) for investment advisors (IA) underestimates overhead costs and overestimates IA examiner productivity.

A key ratings service said it “views positively” the draft framework proposed by state insurance commissioners for evaluating reserves of universal life products with secondary guarantees.

New York insurance regulators fined 15 insurers a total of $2.7 million for failing to notify small businesses of their eligibility to buy special coverage.

A New York investigation into how insurance companies track life insurance policyholders and their beneficiaries resulted in more than 32,000 payments totaling $262.2 million, more than four times its tally in December.

Increased revenue from premium taxes paid by insurance companies helped boost overall state government tax collections in fiscal 2011.

The Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board of Standards decreased the amount of experienced needed to become a CFP professional and made bankruptcy cases available to the public, among other disciplinary changes.

The Pennsylvania Insurance Department approved the merger of Harleysville Mutual and Nationwide Mutual insurance companies with conditions designed to protect the Harleysville brand and its Pennsylvania operations for several years.

The New York Department of Financial Services is requiring the largest force-placed insurers in the state to give details on their expenses, claims payments and profits to determine the validity of their homeowners insurance rates.

Somewhere between the time I wrote March 22 piece on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the group of state insurance regulators, (NAIC) and the time it was posted, the NAIC resolved one of the issues I raised: its identity.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into a law a bill enabling the state insurance regulators to fight false certificates of insurance and those who request them.