Indiana eyes more oversight of insurance companies' exposure to private credit

For The Republic

Indiana lawmakers will likely consider requiring more disclosures from insurance companies about their exposure to private credit funds due to the role that the state plays as a backstop for some insurance policies.

Two independent investment analysts pushed for more oversight of the financial asset class at the state Interim Study Committee on Financial Institutions and Insurance on Tuesday.

Life insurance companies, which also sell retirement annuities, are frequently owned by private equity companies and are also major investors in private credit – a loose term for loans made outside of the traditional banking system.

These loans are much less regulated and are typically viewed as riskier than what life insurance companies have historically invested in – higher-rated bonds.

Investment into private credit has boomed since Dodd-Frank Act regulations made it harder for big banks to make riskier loans.

Private credit has been viewed as a favorable investment for life insurance companies despite the risk because of how long the companies hold onto funds before making payouts to policy holders, according to industry group American Council of Life Insurers.

But private credit defaults have been elevated recently.

If enough defaults materialize and larger insurers become insolvent, states are on the hook to make holders of some policies whole up to certain levels through their respective guaranty funds, analyst Nick Nemeth told the committee.

Nemeth said the insurance industry is overleveraged in private credit.

"Private credit is not inherently bad … but the asset class has burgeoned so much that the underwriting standards have gone down as hundreds of billions of dollars per year are taken in fees," he said.

There is also risk to Indiana's broader economy outside of the potential impact to the budget, Nemeth argued. The use of the state's backstop guaranty fund for a large-scale insolvency case could be complex, he said.

"If those policies go away, [residents are] going to stop spending money, they're going to panic and the Indiana economy is going to pay for it," he said.

State Sen. Mike Bohacek, R- Michiana Shore, and Rep. Bruce Borders, R-Jasonville, both questioned if the state risked interfering too much with the industry's investment decisions and hurting policy holders by reducing the performance of life insurance investments.

"If it's an insurance company, they have a fiduciary responsibility to the fund that what they're investing in meets their guidance," Bohacek said. "I think the perspective that everybody's a bad actor, that's not the case in this situation."

Nemeth pushed back.

"Saying, 'The fiduciaries have it all taken care of, don't worry about a thing,' is the exact type of thing that opens up bad acting," he said.

He added that policy holders typically do not see much benefit from well-performing life insurance investments.

Nemeth and analyst Rod Dubitsky, who offered similar views, both acknowledged that the state itself applying additional regulations could be a challenge, but said "good actors" would be open to requirements for more public disclosures.

"It's incredibly opaque," Nemeth said of the current disclosure system. "As a research professional I have to do a tremendous amount of work to figure out what is where and the average person should not have to do that. I believe there should be a lot more disclosure on these issues."

The committee did not make any recommendations, but lawmakers indicated there will likely be some action moving forward.

"I think disclosure is probably the direction we need to go at the state level," Committee Chair Rep. Martin Carbaugh, R-Fort Wayne, said.

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