Capital Brief: OCC Adds 7 Insurance-Complaint

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced Wednesday that it has signed complaint-sharing agreements with seven more state insurance regulators.

The agreements -- involving Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, and West Virginia bring to 16 the number of state pacts the OCC has struck since June 8, when the agency and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners approved a model contract. Contracts with three additional states are nearly complete, the OCC said.

"The OCC and state insurance departments share a common interest in insurance sales activities by national banks," Comptroller John D. Hawke Jr. said in a statement. "These agreements enhance consumer protection."

Under the typical agreement, the OCC and a state insurance regulator agree to exchange copies of any local complaints about insurance sold by a national bank. In the past, some of these complaints fell through the cracks because regulators ignored matters outside their jurisdictions.

The agreements preserve turf, however. State regulators continue to investigate complaints about individual agents, whom they license, while the OCC handles problems found at national banks.

Other states that have signed pacts include Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

-- Scott Barancik