Regulating Insurance Sales or Selling Insurance?: Against Regulatory Competition in Insurance

By Daniel Schwarcz. Full text here.

In certain regulatory regimes, including those governing banking and corporate law, firms are permitted to choose among multiple competing regulators. This Article examines the desirability of such regulatory competition in the context of property, casualty, and life insurance markets. It analyzes various different approaches to structuring such regulatory competition, including those embodied in two recent reform proposals, the Optional Federal Charter and the Single License Solution. Ultimately, the Article argues that regulatory competition of any sort would undermine the core goals of insurance regulation, harming consumers, insurers, and third parties.