U.S. Representative

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL-15), Senior Deputy Majority Whip and a member of the House Financial Services Committee, released the following statement after the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) preliminarily designated a third insurance company to be a systematically important financial institution (SIFI).

“Again, FSOC has demonstrated instability in its SIFI naming process. I’m very concerned that these unsuitable actions of designating traditional insurance companies, like MetLife, will raise costs on consumers. FSOC has acted with complete disregard to the fact that the Federal Reserve’s current regulatory framework is inappropriate for insurance companies.

“After Prudential Financial was designated as a SIFI, the sole insurance expert who sits on FSOC, and also voted against Prudential’s designation, was very outspoken to the regard that FSOC did not have a complete understanding of the insurance industry. We have a body of non-insurance experts making huge, sweeping changes in the regulatory process for companies like MetLife, one of the companies who maintained stability even through the 2008 financial crisis.”

On September 2, 2014, Congressman Ross signed onto a letter to Secretary Lew, chairman of the FSOC. The letter  states major concern in the SIFI designation process, especially in the actions of naming non-bank companies as SIFIs. Specifically, the letter states that FSOC has “devoted far less effort to empirical analysis, stakeholder outreach, and transparency in its consideration of insurance companies for designation than it has for asset management firms.”

On July 23, 2014, Congressman Ross introduced the Financial Stability Oversight Council Improvement Act (H.R. 5180), bipartisan legislation that would address the FSOC’s lack of transparency when designating institutions as systematically risky.

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