Scott Sinder, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson L.L.P. in Washington, DC who serves as outside counsel for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) in Falls Church, Virginia, talked about insurance industry victories at the 122nd Annual Meeting and Career Conference that will limit damage done by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010.

• Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will appoint Michael McRaith, former Illinois insurance director, as Director of the new Federal Insurance Office at the Treasury Department. McRaith can be counted on to convey industry positions on issues.
• Nomination of outgoing NAIFA President Terry Headley to a federal insurance advisory committee at the Treasury Department.
• Congress has agreed to encourage states to use model consumer protection laws approved by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) as a model for their own consumer protection laws.
• Dodd-Frank Act provisions that limit the scope of activity of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which is a Dodd-Frank-created entity whose oversight extends to banks but not to insurers. However, he warned that the industry needs to remain vigilant against an expansion of CFPB powers. Tax expenditures cost the government about $4 trillion in revenue over 10 years with about $1 trillion of the expenditures involving products sold by the life insurance industry.

Dani Kehoe, a Washington consultant, noted that Congress continues to look at reducing 'tax expenditures' which means reducing the loss of tax revenue due to tax breaks. The loss or reduction of tax expenditures could restrict or eliminate the tax free death benefits for life insurance as well as tax deferments on the inside cash build up of permanent life insurance policies.