Larry D. Zimpleman

CEO, Principal Financial Group

[Representative] Barney Frank [D-Mass.] and the House Financial Services Committee [and] the Administration came out with a regulatory reform proposal that's most interesting. From a process perspective, they have been going at this in a healthy way. In March they began floating out ideas, such as a systemic risk regulator. What's the concept, what agencies could be involved, how might that work? They were communicating concepts, but in a good way. They weren't communicating a lot of detail. They were open and flexible in how that could be processed.

One of the areas near and dear to Principal Financial is this question of insurance regulation. Their proposal was to establish the office of national insurance. We look at that as a step forward. It would be a way to have insurance participate more actively in trade negotiations, but the office wouldn't have regulatory powers so we'd still be dealing with 51 state jurisdictions. We have a basic speed-to-market issue. We're of a mind that ultimately we'll have to address that through a federal charter rather than dealing with 51 jurisdictions.