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Dealing with state and federal regulatory agencies is not for the faint of heart.
The approach is different according to whether the agency is focusing upon your
company or upon your whole industry/several companies in your industry.
While it is obviously critical to appreciate the regulatory realities that are
at the heart of the matter, it is equally mission critical to be focused upon
how much latitude you will have operationally when the agency issues its orders,
if it issues any at all. Too many times companies find that they have traded
vital operational options in order to save money on representation or because of
panic. You don’t want to discover after the fact that you hamstrung yourself
competitively in negotiated settlements. It is near impossible to go back in and
fix that mistake.
Some of the insurance companies in the New York Attorney General’s actions left
themselves competitively disadvantaged in the agreed relief orders due to lack
of sensitivity to the after life necessities.
Lack of latitude to provide essential financial management information in
natural disaster situations produced account management imbalances of rather
substantial proportions after Hurricane Ike. Some insurance companies prohibited
from collecting premiums during a significant post disaster period accumulated
large and old receivables because they failed to appreciate that they could have
sent “Advisory” bills and given insureds the option to pay currently if they
could. This is an example of the common sense approach to major financial
imbalances that we would have suggested.
More often than not the right answer to a situational issue is simply to look at
how many ways the situation can be addressed. This particular resolution
required fifteen minutes of discussion.
Managing the balance between cooperating with others in your industry who are
involved and optimizing what you can for yourself can often leave you with a more
rational result.
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