FEW PIECES OF legislation become law in the same form in which they were introduced.

And that's sure to be the case with the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2009. As we report on page 3, the measure touches on virtually every aspect of the financial services industry.

Given the complexity of the bill, it's almost inevitable that the final reform bill will look a lot different from anything before Congress today.

We hope at least two provisions contained in the Senate draft remain in the final bill or are approved on their own merits.

One is the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act, which passed the House in September and has been included in the Senate proposal. The measure faces no significant opposition. It would streamline the regulation of surplus lines insurers and allow risk managers to access the surplus lines market considerably more easily than they can today. If the comprehensive bill founders, the surplus lines provisions should be considered as separate legislation.

Another provision that makes a lot of sense is buried within a section that would create a new Agency for Financial Stability. The provision says certain financial institutions would have to create risk committees that would include at least one risk management expert.

The Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc. has called for such a requirement for all publicly traded companies of a certain size regardless of the nature of their business. But for the time being, requiring certain financial institutions to take that step would be a good first step t-o implementing enterprise risk management.

The comprehensive reform bill isn't going to look like the draft. But we firmly believe these two provisions deserve to be either part of it, or enacted on their own. They merit nothing less.