Dr. Theresa M. Vaughan*
Dr. Vaughan is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), a position she assumed in February 2009. As CEO, Dr. Vaughan oversees the operations of the NAIC, including offices in Kansas City, Washington, DC, and New York City, and serves as the Association’s primary representative and chief spokesperson in Washington, D.C. Formed in 1871, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is a voluntary organization of the chief insurance regulatory officials of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. The NAIC serves the needs of consumers and the industry, with an overriding objective of supporting state insurance regulators as they protect consumers and maintain the financial stability of the insurance marketplace.
Over her career, Dr. Vaughan has held a variety of positions in academia and regulation. Prior to her current position, she was the Robb B. Kelley Distinguished Professor of Insurance and Actuarial Science at Drake University, where she focused on the regulation and management of financial institutions. From 1994 to 2004, she was the Iowa Insurance Commissioner. In that position, she served under the administrations of both major parties and was the longest serving commissioner in Iowa’s history. She was an active member of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), serving as its President in 2002.
Dr. Vaughan has had a long-term interest in financial convergence issues, international developments in supervision and regulation, and regulatory modernization. Prior to and following the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), she was the NAIC’s chief liaison with federal banking regulators and served a key role in developing the NAIC’s response to GLBA. From 1999 to 2004, she was a member of the Joint Forum, a Basel-based group of banking, insurance, and securities supervisors created to address cross-sectoral and financial conglomerate issues. During that period, she was also an active member of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. More recently, she has served as the Vice Chair of the Insurance Regulation Committee of the International Actuarial Association. From 2001 to 2003, she chaired the NAIC’s terrorism risk implementation working group and worked with the Congress and U.S. Treasury on passage and implementation of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. She is widely credited with being the architect of the NAIC’s Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Compact.
Dr. Vaughan earned a Ph.D. in risk and insurance at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.B.A. in insurance and economics at the University of Iowa. She is a CPCU, an Associate of the Society of Actuaries, an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society, and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She is the co-author of two college textbooks on insurance, Essentials of Insurance and Fundamentals of Risk and Insurance, the 10thedition of which was released in December 2007. She is a past editor of the Journal of Insurance Regulation and is the Immediate Past tPresident of the American Risk and Insurance Association, the premier academic association devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about risk management and insurance.
