Financial Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee

Financial Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee
December 2, 2007

The Financial Regulation Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee met on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007. During this meeting, the Committee:

Heard a report from a subgroup that was charged with considering comments received related to risk-focused examinations, including proposed revisions to the NAIC Financial Condition Examiners Handbook (the Examiners Handbook) and the review team guidelines. The subgroup noted that due to the technicality of some of the comments received, specifically from the accreditation review team members, consideration of the comments and suggested amendments to the revisions was referred to the Risk Assessment (E) Working Group (the Working Group) this summer. A response was received back from the Working Group on Oct. 10, 2007, and the Committee voted to adopt each of the proposed revisions to the review team guidelines effective Jan. 1, 2008. The Committee also noted that for examinations commencing prior to Jan. 1, 2010, states will be asked to identify whether those examinations were completed under the current Specific Risk Analysis approach or the new risk-focused surveillance approach in preparation for a full accreditation review in order to determine on which set of review team guidelines the state will be judged.

Voted to adopt the 2006 revisions to the Examiners Handbook developed by the Financial Examiners Handbook (E) Technical Group (the Technical Group) related to the new risk-focused surveillance approach to conducting financial examinations that the Technical Group deemed significant to the accreditation process. Use of the new risk-focused surveillance approach will be required for all financial examinations commencing Jan. 1, 2010, and later.

Action Items:

Voted to adopt proposed revisions to the review team guidelines related to risk-focused examinations, effective Jan. 1, 2008.

Voted to adopt 2006 revisions to the Examiners Handbook related to the new risk-focused surveillance approach to conducting financial examinations, which were identified as significant to the accreditation program by the Financial Examiners Handbook (E) Technical Group. Use of the new risk-focused surveillance approach will be required for all financial examinations commencing Jan. 1, 2010, and later.