• New York’s Assault on the NRA Sets a Dangerous Precedent

    From Gene Poole@21:1/5 to All on Thu Aug 1 14:00:46 2019
    XPost: alt.education.research, alabama.politics, alt.politics.usa.constitution.gun-rights
    XPost: ca.politics

    One can imagine similar actions targeting Planned Parenthood,
    tobacco companies, or even rival political campaigns.
    The National Rifle Association announced May 11 that it has
    filed suit against the New York State Department of Financial
    Services; its superintendent, Maria T. Vullo; and the state’s
    governor, Andrew Cuomo, alleging the state and its agents
    violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights in a recent regulatory
    ruling.

    I will leave to constitutional scholars to debate the First
    Amendment question. But in terms of regulating the business of
    insurance in an effective, efficient, and nonpoliticized manner
    — a topic about which I am the author of an annual report — the
    department’s behavior sets a dangerous precedent that should
    trouble citizens across the political spectrum.

    The lawsuit stems from settlements the DFS reached earlier this
    month with Kansas City–based insurance broker Lockton Cos. and
    underwriter Chubb Ltd. The companies were fined $7 million and
    $1.3 million, respectively, in connection with alleged
    violations of New York insurance law. The purported wrongdoing
    stemmed from Lockton’s work as broker for the NRA’s “Carry
    Guard” insurance program, which provides liability insurance to
    NRA members for firearm-related accidents and for legal costs in
    self-defense cases.

    The charges against Lockton varied from the technical to the
    flimsy to the picayune, but they all give the appearance of
    pretext for what the department was actually seeking, and got: a
    consent decree in which the broker agrees “not to participate in
    the Carry Guard Program, any similar programs, or any other NRA-
    endorsed programs with regard to New York State.”

    In fact, Lockton had already cut ties with the NRA, one of a
    number of corporate partners to do so in the wake of the mass
    shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
    Fla. But the Department of Financial Services has made clear its
    willingness to pressure other firms to do the same. In an April
    letter from Vullo to the state’s banks and insurance companies,
    she wrote that the department “encourages its chartered and
    licensed financial institutions to continue evaluating and
    managing their risks, including reputational risks, that may
    arise from their dealings with the NRA or similar gun promotion
    organizations.”

    Ironically, we have simultaneously seen recent legislative
    efforts by some gun-control advocates, including in the general
    assembly of neighboring Connecticut, to actually require gun
    owners to maintain liability insurance. The type of coverage
    usually envisioned by such proposals, which would compensate the
    victims of offensive uses of firearms, is unlikely ever to come
    to market, as intentional acts are generally agreed to be
    uninsurable. But as a result of the New York regulator’s action,
    one expects a chilling effect that would cause insurers to
    withdraw from offering even the more limited coverage included
    in the NRA program, or in many homeowners insurance policies.

    Indeed, Lloyd’s of London, the world’s largest market for hard-
    to-place risks, has responded by directing its underwriters “to
    terminate any existing programs of this type and not to enter
    into any new ones,” with specific reference to concerns about
    the New York DFS inquiry into “programs offered, marketed,
    endorsed or otherwise made available through the National Rifle
    Association of America.” The Lloyd’s decision was a feature, not
    a bug, of the department’s action. The goal pretty clearly was
    to use the regulator’s office, which is supposed to apply
    impartial, technocratic rules to see to it that insurance
    companies responsibly and competently manage their underwriting
    and investment risks and that they deal with consumers in good
    faith, to achieve political ends.

    This temptation is not unique to the political Left. In early
    2015, Oklahoma insurance commissioner John Doak issued a warning
    shot to property insurers in the state who might seek to invoke
    exclusions for “manmade” earthquakes stemming from oil and gas
    exploration. Despite strong evidence that deep-well injections
    play a role in the thousands of earthquakes Oklahoma experiences
    every year, Doak asserted there was “no agreement at a
    scientific or governmental level concerning any connection
    between injection wells or fracking and ‘earthquakes.'”

    Seeing regulators open this Pandora’s box should be deeply
    concerning to those on both the right and the left. One easily
    could imagine similar motivated prosecutions of financial-
    services firms that do business with Planned Parenthood, tobacco
    companies, tech firms, the solar industry, or even the political
    campaigns of rival parties. The precedent set by these blatantly
    political regulatory actions undermines not only the insurance
    market, but the rule of law.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/new-york-lawsuit-against- nra-sets-dangerous-precedent/
     

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