Thomas B. Considine became CEO of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators on Jan. 1. Based in Manasquan, New Jersey, the organization helps inform legislators on insurance issues. Mr. Considine began his career as a lawyer before joining MetLife Inc.'s government relations team. He held various positions during his 17 years at the insurer, including head of national government relations and public policy. In 2010, he was appointed commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance. Having also spent time as chief operating officer of a regional health plan and CEO of a community hospital, Mr. Considine says his experience as a regulator, insurer and provider “well-prepared” him for his current role. Mr. Considine recently spoke with Business Insurance Associate Editor Stephanie Goldberg about some of the biggest issues insurance legislators are dealing with today. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: What are your top goals as CEO of NCOIL?

A: To increase NCOIL's proper leadership role in the legislative and public policy area for what is a state regulated topic.

Q: How have the roles you've held, on all sides of this industry, prepared you for this one?

A: The combination of them well-prepared me for this role. If you go all the way back, it certainly helps that I went to law school. Then, having served as a regulatory lawyer for 17 years, including years managing the public policy and government relations area for a really large company, was a role in which I dealt with the debate over the formation of laws and regs literally on a daily basis.

Q: What are some of the biggest insurance issues legislators are dealing with today?

A: I think there's a natural concern about the encroachment of international regulatory activity on U.S. insurers. If internationally there are developed international capital regulatory standards that apply all over the world, including to insurers in the United States, that would have the effect of pre-empting the ability of state insurance regulators to develop, as they traditionally have done, the capital standards for insurers. So, if you think about it, that leaps right past federal pre-emption of state insurance regulations to international pre-emption.

There are areas where states and the federal government need to work closely together, but state jurisdiction should not be pre-empted.

Q: What does NCOIL do to help legislators better understand such issues?

A: The NCOIL staff can conduct research on an issue, develop white papers, share that with our member legislators. We can hold hearings, or discussions that are short of hearings, where we hear from all sides of an issue. Then NCOIL legislators from around the country hear from the experts we bring in to discuss an issue. And from other legislators around the country to hear what their experiences are.

Q: How has NCOIL's role evolved over time?

A: Well, the basic structure hasn't changed that much. You know I've been coming to NCOIL meetings on and off since the latter part of the "90s in my different roles. It will change as new technology becomes available to NCOIL. We'll have more conference calls and perhaps webinars during the year. That way we'll be able to keep momentum going on various topics. If you only meet three times a year and there's not activity in between the meetings, then when you get back together people are kind of saying, “OK, now where did we leave off last time?” We want to eliminate that. So, those are a few of the ways that we'll change, with better use of technology and interim sessions. We're in the process right now of redesigning the website, looking at designing an app, things like that.