Insurance companies constitute a major segment of the U.S. financial services industry. The industry is often separated into two parts: life and health insurance companies , which also often offer annuity products, and property and casualty insurance companies , which include most other lines of insurance, such as homeowners insurance, automobile insurance, and various commercial lines of insurance purchased by businesses. In 2017, premiums for life and health insurance companies totaled $592.2 billion with assets totaling $7.07 trillion, and premiums for property and casualty insurance companies totaled $556 billion with assets totaling $1.98 trillion. Different lines of insurance present different characteristics and risks. Life insurance typically is a longer-term proposition with contracts stretching over decades and insurance risks that are relatively well defined in actuarial tables. Property and casualty insurances typically are shorter-term propositions with six-month or one-year contracts and have greater exposure to catastrophic risks. Health insurance has evolved in a different direction, with many insurance companies heavily involved with health care delivery, including negotiating contracts with physicians and hospitals, and a regulatory system much more influenced by the federal government through Medicare, Medicaid, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). This report concentrates primarily on the regulation of property and casualty insurance and life insurance. Insurance companies, unlike banks and securities firms, have been chartered and regulated solely by the states for the past 150 years. Legal and legislative landmarks in the state-based insurance regulatory system have included Supreme Court decisions in 1868 ( Paul v. Virginia ) and 1944 ( U.S. v. South-Eastern Underwriters Associa t ion ) and federal legislation in 1945 (the McCarran-Ferguson Act). The McCarran-Ferguson Act specifically preserved the states' authority to regulate and tax insurance and also granted a federal antitrust exemption to the insurance industry for "the business of insurance." There are no federal insurance regulators akin to those for securities firms or banks, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), respectively. Each state government has a department or other entity charged with licensing and regulating insurance companies and those individuals and companies selling insurance products. States regulate the solvency of the companies and the content of insurance products as well as the market conduct of companies. Although each state sets its own laws and regulations for insurance, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) acts as a coordinating body that sets national standards through model laws and regulations. NAIC-adopted models, however, must be enacted by the states before having legal effect, which can be a lengthy and uncertain process. The states have also developed a coordinated system for insurer resolution, including guaranty funds designed to protect policyholders in the event of insurer insolvency. Since the passage of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, both Congress and the federal courts have taken actions that have somewhat expanded the reach of the federal government into the insurance sphere. The insurance industry has often been divided over the possibility of federal actions affecting insurance. States typically, though not always, have resisted federal actions, arguing that states are better positioned to regulate insurance and address consumer complaints and that states have engaged in concerted actions to address concerns raised at the federal level. The two large legislative overhauls of financial regulation in the past two decades, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA) and the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), expanded the federal role in insurance, but states continued as the primary regulators of insurance following these acts. GLBA removed legal barriers between securities firms, banks, and insurers, allowing these firms to coexist under a financial holding company structure. Under the act, such a holding company was overseen by an umbrella regulator—the Federal Reserve for holding companies that included bank subsidiaries or the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) for holding companies with thrift or savings association subsidiaries. Within a holding company, GLBA established a system of functional regulation for the bank, thrift, securities, and insurance subsidiaries. This meant that insurance company subsidiaries within a bank or thrift holding company were functionally regulated by state insurance authorities, with limited oversight by the holding company's federal regulator. The Dodd-Frank Act altered the post-GLBA regulatory structure, but left the basic functional regulatory paradigm largely the same. The act gave enhanced systemic risk regulatory authority to the Federal Reserve and to a newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), including some oversight authority over insurers. The act created a new Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA), which potentially could result in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) overseeing the resolution of insurers. The authority to oversee holding companies, including those with insurance subsidiaries, was consolidated in the Federal Reserve with additional capital requirements added. The Dodd-Frank Act also included measures affecting the states' oversight of surplus lines insurance and reinsurance and created a new Federal Insurance Office (FIO) within the Department of the Treasury. Following the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and Dodd-Frank, international insurance issues have been of greater interest to Congress. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) named several U.S. insurers as global systemically important insurers (G-SIIs), and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has been developing a multifaceted set of regulatory standards to apply to G-SIIs and other internationally active insurers. The United States and the European Union (EU) negotiated a covered agreement addressing a long-standing dispute over reinsurance collateral as well as questions about how U.S. insurers would be treated under the EU's new "Solvency II" regulatory regime. Possible insurance regulatory issues before the 115 th Congress include overseeing the implementation of, and possible amendments to, the Dodd-Frank Act, including specific legislation, such as P.L. 115-61 , H.R. 10 , H.R. 3746 / S. 2702 , H.R. 3861 , and H.R. 4483 ; narrowly reforming the current regulatory system, such as H.R. 3363 ; and responding to international developments, such as the development of international standards by the IAIS, with oversight and specific legislation, such as P.L. 115-174 , S. 1360 , and H.R. 3762 / H.R. 4537 / S. 488 . S. 1463 was introduced by Senator Mike Crapo on June 28, 2017; it was ordered to be reported favorably on a voice vote by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on September 9, 2017. H.R. 3110 was introduced by Representative Randy Hultgren on June 29, 2017; it was reported by the House Committee on Financial Services by a vote of 60-0 ( H.Rept. 115-293 ) on September 5, 2017. H.R. 3110 passed the House by a vote of 407-1 on September 5, 2018, and passed the Senate by unanimous consent on September 19, 2018. President Trump signed the bill on September 27, 2017 ( P.L. 115-61 ). P.L. 115-61 amends the Dodd-Frank Act's language creating an independent member with insurance expertise, who serves on the FSOC. Specifically, the law adds language allowing the independent member to serve up to 18 months after the end of his or her 6-year term or until a successor is appointed and confirmed. The first independent member, S. Roy Woodall, was confirmed on September 26, 2011. President Trump nominated Thomas E. Workman to the position on January 8, 2018, and the Senate confirmed Mr. Workman on March 21, 2018. S. 2155 was introduced by Senator Crapo and 19 cosponsors on November 16, 2017. The bill was marked up and reported on a vote of 16-7 by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in December 2017. It passed the Senate by a vote of 67-31 on March 14, 2018. The House passed S. 2155 without amendment on May 22, 2018, and the President signed the bill into P.L. 115-174 on May 24, 2018. P.L. 115-174 includes a broad range of financial services provisions largely dealing with noninsurance issues. As introduced, it included no provisions focused on insurance, but a new section was added in the Senate committee markup with language similar to S. 1360 (discussed below). Section 211 of P.L. 115-174 finds that the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FIO director shall support transparency in international insurance fora and shall "achieve consensus positions with State insurance regulators through the [NAIC]" when taking positions in international fora. It creates an "Insurance Policy Advisory Committee on International Capital Standards and Other Insurance Issues" at the Federal Reserve made up of 21 members with expertise on various aspects of insurance. The Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury are to complete both an annual report and provide testimony on the ongoing discussions at the IAIS through 2022, and the Federal Reserve and FIO are to complete a study and report, along with the opportunity for public comment and review by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), on the impact of international capital standards or other proposals prior to agreeing to such standards. Unlike S. 1360 , however, the enacted law does not have specific requirements on the final text of any international capital standard.