U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Mary J. Miller recently announced that the first final list of non-bank Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFI) is going to be released soon. See Property Casualty for more details. This list will include insurance companies. Miller said she hoped the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) headed by new Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew, would vote on the list in the next several months. The FSOC and SIFI designation were critical components of the Dodd-Frank reform act.
In April 2012, FSOC approved the final criteria for making these designations, but relatively little information has been released since then. According to the Treasury Department, companies which are designated as SIFIs face additional oversight and capital requirements in order to better manage the risk that this institution will not fail causing a shock to the system. Some of the considerations the FSOC will review in making its determination include the company’s size, its interconnectedness with the marketplace and other businesses, and its impact and influence in the marketplace.