Iowa Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss says she will ask Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox to extend the comment period for a proposed SEC rule that would redefine many equity-indexed annuities as securities. Voss said she’s asking for the extension so state insurance commissioners can fully weigh in.

Voss said state insurance regulators have done much work to ensure that carriers’ sales are suitable and in providing proper disclosures about indexed annuities. No financial product is perfect, she said, and “you only need to look at the financial sections in the morning paper to know that somehow there are other regulators out there that I kind of question the job they’re doing,” said Voss, a member of the NAIC’s Life Insurance & Annuities Committee.

July 22, 2008