U.S. Insurer Operations and Regulatory Standard Developments in the Global Market: A Timeline-based Examination

Despite real premium growth rates, flattening per capital consumption of life and nonlife insurance and a downward move of the industry's contribution to the economy, the U.S. is still attractive to foreign insurance companies. At the same time, several U.S. companies continue or plan their operations in foreign soils. As a result, more governments improve their regulatory frameworks and work with each other to harmonize cross-border regulation for insurance market growth and stability regionally and globally. This paper examines the developmental status of the U.S. market during the past 30 years or so, developments of U.S. insurance regulation related to cross-border operations, and U.S.'s involvement in international regulatory and supervisory harmonization and standard-setting activities, including the Common Framework for the Supervision of Internationally Active Insurance Groups (ComFrame), the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU), regulation of Significantly Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) and international accounting standard-setting initiatives. It is recommended that the U.S. be more active in their participation while improving any unnecessary overlaps in the state-based regulation.