On May 18, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) reintroduced S. 1694, a bill to abolish the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) of the Department of the Treasury.

The bill will protect the successful state insurance regulatory system by repealing the FIO, an unnecessary federal bureaucracy created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). State insurance departments and legislatures are the proper place for the regulation of insurance, and the state insurance regulatory system has served both consumers and the insurance industry well for over one hundred years.

PIA strongly supports our thriving, state-based insurance regulatory system and opposes federal statutory and regulatory action that encroach on and thus threaten it. The existence of the FIO is an unnecessary threat to the state insurance regulatory system, and the survival of that system depends on the repeal of the FIO.

The reintroduction of the bill comes a week after PIA’s 2023 Advocacy Day, where PIA members from around the country urged their elected representatives to support the repeal of the office. An identical House bill was introduced by Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) on April 27.