SEATTLE--Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidlersaid he believes that the National Association of InsuranceCommissioners should consider giving large states more votingpower.

Mr. Kriedler, speaking here yesterday during the closing sessionof the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America's annualmeeting, said he was in favor of a proportional voting system formore populous states.

"You can't have the Northern Marianas Islands with the same voteas the 19 million population of New York. It isn't reasonable," heremarked.

The NAIC should shift to make the organization, "much moreresponsive to large premium states," he said. Without such a shift,the NAIC cannot remain a viable regulatory group and avoid effortsto shift control to a federal regulator, he noted.

The proportional voting issue, Mr. Kriedler said, is one whichcould come up when the NAIC holds its planned retreat in February.That meeting, he said, would present "a great opportunity fordebate."

Discussing a question about how elected and appointed insurancecommissioners perform, Mr. Kriedler, an elected Democrat, said thatsome elected officials go after insurers to score political points,but he sees drawbacks with appointed commissioners as well.

Appointees may be too focused on "their own backyard" and have apolitical agenda set by their governor. In addition, he noted thatthere is a problem of rapid turnover among appointed commissioners,who average 24 months on the job.

As a result of Tuesday's elections, Mr. Kriedler said he wouldguess that as much as one-third of the membership of the NAIC willundergo a change.

Mr. Kriedler added that in addition to a need for proportionalrepresentation, the NAIC must "rise to the challenge" and do moreto streamline the regulatory process for licensing agents and speedinsurance product approvals to get them to market faster.

He believes the NAIC is capable of balancing its job ofproviding protection for consumers while eliminating impediments inthe insurers' marketplace.

In his state, Mr. Kriedler said the insurance departmentprocesses rate and form filings in less than 30 days. When insurersare slow with their paperwork in the course of filing a request,his staff calls to find out if there is a problem and if they canbe of help.

Regulators, he said, have to make sure that the same effort tospeed processing is the case in all states.