BizJournals Portfolio
Feb 09 2009 11:17am EDT

Why We Need Federal Insurance Regulation Now

Rolfe Winkler has a great post on Allstate's finances today, which underscores two things: the urgency of massive regulatory overhaul in the financial sector, and the necessity of including insurance companies under the unified financial-services regulatory umbrella.

Unless and until that happens, companies like Allstate will go regulator-shopping (the state of Illinois seems pretty well-disposed towards them) and bad insurance will drive out good. And then, eventually, when there's a big insurable disaster, we'll all be shocked -- shocked! -- that Allstate isn't able to use deferred tax assets, and other "capital" of dubious real-world worth, to pay out on its policies.

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