Renewed Bid For National Reinsurer May Not Rein In Costs

Jerry Theodorou, who directs the Finance, Insurance and Trade Policy Program at the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank, said it was good that the bill considered loss prevention, but the devil would be in the details. There are unanswered questions, he said, about how to marry a national program to individual risk-reduction projects.

Theodorou also said that the global reinsurance market, which provides a significant amount of coverage to U.S. carriers, could also be affected by a new national reinsurer.

“I don’t think it has legs,” Theodorou said. “Some of these defects are kind of alarming — you have the rate cap, you have the possible cutting back of global reinsurance.”