IT HAS TAKEN far longer than it should have, but a federal-level insurance office will be established soon, and surplus lines taxation and regulatory reform is about to become law.

Both are contained in the comprehensive financial services regulatory legislation that President Obama is expected to sign into law this week. We've long supported both initiatives, and believe they can be harbingers of additional reform.

While we have no objections to the provisions in their current form, we think the Federal Insurance Office should have had greater power to pre-empt state insurance regulations, particularly those that affect international insurance matters. Foreign insurers have long complained, and rightly so, of the difficulties of dealing with more than 50 regulators, rather than being able to work with a single official who can speak with authority on insurance matters for the nation as a whole. Pre-emptory powers granted to the new Federal Insurance Office fall short of what we would have liked.

That said, there's no denying the importance of having a federal-level insurance resource within the Treasury Department. As the drafter of the original federal insurance office bill—Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa.—noted more than two years ago, such an office would have provided expertise to assist in the consideration of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, which created the federal terrorism backstop program, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The insurance provisions contained in the regulatory reform bill present a sound foundation for further reforms, including the eventual establishment of a system of optional federal charters for multistate insurers and producers. The foundation is there, and it's up to risk managers and other reform advocates to make the most of it in the years to come.