PIFS-Harvard Law School: Do Insurance Companies Pose Systemic Risk?

The Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS), with the financial support of MetLife (and other sponsors selected by MetLife), organized a panel of the leading experts, from the public and private sector, to engage in a two hour Socratic Panel Discussion on “whether life insurance is systemic and how should it be regulated”. The discussion included an examination of the Dodd-Frank SIFI requirements as well as the international approach to the determination of non-bank SIFIs. The regulation discussion examined how, if at all, regulation of insurance companies should change in the U.S. for those companies designated as SIFIs. The Panel Discussion was followed by a question and answer period.

Professor Hal S. Scott, Nomura Professor and Director of the Program on International Financial Systems, served as a moderator of the panel discussion. Professor Scott is also the Director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation.

Socratic Panels consist of questions and answers to panelists from the moderator focused around particular hypothetical situations (based on practical ones). A great deal of preparation is required so that the discussion of the panelists is organized into relevant subtopics and orchestrated to bring out the views of the panelists. The moderator completes one hour interviews with each panelist before the event to prepare for the event. Panelists are not asked questions they are not prepared for.

The event was made possible through the sponsorship of MetLife and the American Council of Life Insurers