Fitzgerald, Flood Introduce Bill to Safeguard Insurance Data Privacy

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Scott Fitzgerald (WI-05) and Congressman Mike Flood (NE-01) introduced the Insurance Data Protection Act to rein in the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) by eliminating its subpoena authority and limiting how the office collects data from state insurance regulators.

For about 150 years, state insurance regulators and respective laws have regulated insurance companies. The FIO, which was created under Dodd-Frank, has grown increasingly aggressive in collecting data from insurance companies, most recently issuing a proposed data collection to assess “climate-related financial risk.”  The proposal fails to consider the burden of collecting vast amounts of data, lacks a clear purpose or benefit, and did not take the time to coordinate with state regulators as required under Dodd-Frank.

“The FIO’s proposal requiring insurers to submit insurance underwriting data to assess climate risk is just the latest attempt by Biden’s bureaucrats to push their out-of-touch climate and social agenda,” said Rep. Fitzgerald. “The Insurance Data Protection Act is an important step in protecting consumer data and reducing costly regulatory burdens. This legislation will repeal the coercive subpoena and enforcement powers of the FIO and implement additional data privacy safeguards so the public can rest-assured that their data is not being mishandled.” 

“Thank you to Rep. Fitzgerald for his leadership on the Insurance Data Protection Act, a bill I’m proud to support. This legislation will help protect the role of states in serving as the primary regulator of private insurance companies while also protecting job creators from being forced to surrender information about their business operations for the purpose of appeasing climate activists,” said Rep. Flood. 

This bill has been endorsed by the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), American Property & Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), Association for Independent Agents (Big I), and National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA)

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